


Impossible

by Yidkirkin



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Family, Feel-good, Happy Ending, Post-Third Shinobi War, Redemption, Third Shinobi War, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:40:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yidkirkin/pseuds/Yidkirkin
Summary: Obito dies, and then he wakes up. Obito thought he could take the low road of death to his repentance, but Rin, unfortunately, tells him that he must take the high road, and live and work towards making things right. So he wakes up back in the cave, but he isn't just going to forget what Naruto said to him in the future. And he's going to make it count.
Relationships: Uchiha Fugaku/Uchiha Mikoto
Comments: 17
Kudos: 134





	1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer; I own nothing here.

by: Yidkirkin

Spoilers ahead

VVV

In the dim light of an underground cavern, Uchiha Obito swam into consciousness reluctantly. The reason was clear immediately –there was an ache lancing through his body, fully encased up to his hips and slowly making its way through his stomach. It saturated his skin first and then seeped into his muscles, and from there took his chakra coils from each tenketsu point, and the sharp sensation was paralyzing him and pushing his brain into action all at once. He should have known that after all he had done, he would not join Rin in the Pure Land; when he pried open his eyes, he expected to come face to face with the looming figure of the Shinigami, ready to torture him for an eternity before he would be allowed rest.

Instead, _impossibly,_ he recognized the crack in the ceiling of the cavern, and the sounds that reached him were suspiciously similar to the wheezing breath of an elder on the precipice of death. Instead, the looming stalk of the Flowering Tree rose into the darkness to hold up the Gedo Statue in the chamber far above them, and when he dragged in a breath it was to taste the musky, stagnant air of the Mountain’s Graveyard.

It was only the arresting pain still creeping up his body that kept him from reacting to the revelation outwardly; in his mind, Obito was reeling in confusion and anger and no small amount of resignation. Unless this was an extremely vivid hallucination or genjutsu, neither of which he had ever been particularly susceptible to, then he was in the chamber and Madara was still alive. Was this to be his punishment in the afterlife, to be trapped in a vision of the worst time of his life? Perhaps he had been naive to think that he could ever pass into the Pure Land, but he had died with the shining hope in his head that maybe he could atone with Rin at his side. He had tried to start that long road by sacrificing his life for the sake of Kakashi and Naruto and the fight against Kaguya, by allowing the boy to break his conviction and for Kakashi to get through to him long enough that he could choose such a thing in the first place.

It appeared he was too little too late.

The buzz in his body was close to his heart, and with a sinking feeling Obito finally recognized it as an invasion of foreign chakra, and despite himself flashes of Madara taking his eye and prodding at his right side and coldly reaching for him spun past his vision. Then the chakra made contact with Madara’s Seal and _burned_ ; the years of experience in keeping his emotions under a tight hold was all that stopped him from letting out an agonized screech, but as it was his entire body seized violently as the chakra ate through the Seal and flooded his entire system at once. It hit him in the face like a wave of fire and bled into his eye sockets, and he bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood –but it still couldn’t stop the noise he let out, drawn and desperate for release or mercy. Side by side, the chakra was so different from what his fourteen year old body held, so much _more_ and _dark_ but because it was still _his_ it flushed into every facet of his being with relief on the heels of the pain.

He could hear Madara shift and demand an explanation for his distress –Obito seized again and clutched at his chest and his arm, and then over his _eye_ as the chakra burned and healed and swallowed him whole, his fourteen year old body, his thirty-two year old mind and all of the memories that were bombarding him. He was thrust into a fervour of pain and swirling chakra, and then everything was dark and howling except for a single flare of light in front of him.

Obito wasn’t sure what it was, but he didn’t get much of a chance to dwell on it –the pinprick of light grew, it flashed and blinded him momentarily like a raging fire, and then a _feeling._

When he made to move closer, the light turned softer, and there was the sensation of a hand ghosting over his cheek. The impression of a soft smile before him, and as he always had when she came to mind, Obito’s chest hurt and he lost his breath.

 _“Sorry, Obito,”_ Rin said, not sounding all too sincere even if she did seem sad. _“You can’t take the low road here. The high road will be difficult, but when you’ve reached the end, I’ll be ready to welcome you.”_

He tried, but he couldn’t speak. It wasn’t remotely like when he saw Rin in the Pure Land, but he knew it was still real –her steadfast support but also her firm reprimand, the way she asked for no more than Obito could give even if it didn’t seem that way. The light settled in his brain and somehow he knew what he was about to see would be horrible, but anything that Rin gave him wasn’t something he could refuse.

Maybe it was being thrust back into this place he hated so much, under the tons of crushing dirt and rock that made him get sick to his stomach when he let his guard down; maybe it was just that the Shinigami wanted him to suffer to the fullest extent and would not tolerate the cold detachment he had cultivated over the last two decades. Either way, it hit him like nothing else in recent memory when he saw the deaths of every member of the Akatsuki.

Sasori was stripped of his layers of puppetry by his grandmother, Lady Chiyo, and stabbed by the same puppets he made to resemble his mother and father; Obito hadn’t known that he was so intent on killing Orochimaru for the betrayal of Akatsuki, he had always thought the man to be detached and only in the organization for his own gain. Then Deidara had followed him on the mission to take down Uchiha Sasuke, and when Tobi attempted to disengage he had kept going, for the hate they had pushed on him and the success he thought he could garner them all with his ultimate art. Kakuzu’s battle was perhaps the longest and hardest fought, his century of experience taken down by Kakashi and his students’ combined efforts –and then his body brought back to Konoha to have who-knew-what done to it. One of the man’s stipulations in his contract upon joining Akatsuki was that if he ever _did_ die, his body would be disposed of where no one could ever get to it.

Hidan had been a bit of a nut and was only in the Akatsuki because he respected that they knew what it truly meant to be shinobi, but Obito was intimately familiar with being buried alive. The man’s fate was probably the worst of all of them, especially so since he wouldn’t feel the release of death for however long his life span lasted. Itachi, the cousin who Obito had used for his own gain without pause; he had died not by Obito’s hands, but by Obito’s will. The festering guilt and disease and love had destroyed him more thoroughly than anything else. Nagato was convinced by Naruto’s words, by his shining heart, and through the use of his Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique revived everyone that had died in his invasion of Konoha at the cost of his life; it was yet more blood on Obito’s hands, for he had manipulated the man from his original ideals and crushed him under that weight.

Kisame was proud and loyal to the end, he refused to betray Obito even in the face of a mind technique and instead sacrificed himself to ferry on the information the Akatsuki needed; his own shark summons devoured him alive and he welcomed it with a grin on his face. Obito knew Konan’s death the clearest for he had fought her to it as she tried to defend the sanctity of her comrades’ corpses, a fight so impressive Obito could still feel the exhaustion of it in his very bones.

And then there was him. Madara, Tobi, Obito; he had chosen to defend Naruto and Kakashi at the last, the only good decision he had made in nearly twenty years of plotting and seeking revenge, and his twisted vision had amounted to nothing in the end.

Obito couldn’t lie to himself and claim that deep down he had cared for the members of Akatsuki –Kisame was only an exception due to his loyalty and knowledge of his identity, but he had thought of them all as nothing but tools for his ultimate goal. The Akatsuki under Madara had been twisted away from its revolutionary origins and in the end was seen as nothing more than a terrorist group full of missing-nin who would be better off dead.

In the end that was all the Akatsuki was –dead rogue shinobi and the world better for it. Obito used them without remorse or regret, and every one of them knew it.

But seeing their last moments was so final. He had worked and bled and suffered for so _long_ , and that it only amounted to broken bonds and heart ache and _death_ was such a... waste. It was a waste of a powerful organization, and a waste of its potential to change their blood soaked world, and it was a _wasted effort._

If there was one thing Obito could admit he truly hated, it was to have worked for something and not seen results. Had he taken control earlier, done things with more subtlety and care, everything would have been different. If only he could have foreseen the trouble they would face, the betrayal of Madara and Zetsu; that the Konoha-nin who had lost so much to the Akatsuki would not just take it lying down, but would surge up against them with fire in their eyes. If only he hadn’t made the Akatsuki crumble from the inside out.

That thought shone like a beacon through the pain of the foreign chakra overtaking his body. He ignored the Seal disintegrating to dust and his eyes changing and his arm seizing even more than the rest of his body and instead allowed himself to settle into his mind once more. That was the main crux of it all, wasn’t it? He had been the one to create the world-wide version of Akatsuki and grow it far past what Nagato, Konan and Yahiko had ever envisioned for it, but the reason it had failed wasn’t due to outside influence. It was because of _him_ and his delusions, his trust misplaced, and his blindness to how wrong he had been approaching things the entire time. _He_ had been the reason every single one of the Akatsuki members had died and that there was nothing to show for the lives lived in pursuit of his goal.

Obito opened his eyes to the very real, sudden threat of Madara looming over his prone body and about to touch the Seal to determine what was wrong. About to _touch him_ , and with the flashes of the year trapped here with the old man and the last memories of Madara instructing Black Zetsu to kill him in _repayment_ –Obito acted without thinking, on pure instinct. His hand lashed out at the same time he activated the Mangekyou, and Madara vanished into the spiralling void of his Kamui.

Obito sat there, his hand outstretched and his body _burning_ from the chakra he’d needed to use in order to send Madara past his Kamui dimension. There was a ringing in his ears and his heart beat like a drum in his chest –the empty space where his tormentor had been a second prior yawned wide with his worst memories as he found himself alone with the Flowering Tree of Hashirama under tons of rock.

Wasn’t this his punishment from the Shinigami for his years of wreaking death and destruction? There was no way he could be allowed the reprieve from Madara’s presence for this eternity in Hell –if it was meant to recreate his worst memories, then Madara would have stayed longer than the scant ten minutes that had elapsed and taken Obito’s body even further along in his experiments. If this was meant to torment him, then the Black Zetsu that resided within Madara couldn’t have been caught in Obito’s Kamui, he should have thrown himself out of the old man and latched onto Obito and forced him to enact the Eye of the Moon plan against his will.

_The high road will be difficult-_

“Obito! It’s your friends, Rin and Bakashi!” Obito turned to the wall, where Chatterbox was phased half in and half out, just like in all of his nightmares of the original incident. “They’re surrounded by Kiri-nin!”

In the corner, Swirly materialized from the floor and then the two noticed Obito’s lack of reaction to the words, and the empty throne where Madara had once sat for however long. Chatterbox faltered and worriedly scanned the chamber before he looked again to Obito, who was staring straight at him with –well, Obito didn’t know what sort of expression he was wearing right now, but it must not have been a very nice one.

“Er –where’s Madara-sama?” Chatterbox asked, and Swirly awkwardly formed the rest of his body and looked at Obito with consideration.

“Obito-kun did something to him. Sent him away with his Sharingan,” Swirly had always been a bit more serious than his companion, and it showed in the way he was braced for Obito to do the same to him. “What... what happened, Obito-kun?”

This might not be a Realm of Hell, Obito thought suddenly, and with that one hypothesis his mind jolted in an entirely new direction and he surged up and out of the bed despite his exhaustion. Swirly took a step back and Chatterbox flinched into the stone slightly, and Obito recalled that even though they had been on Black Zetsu’s side in the end, the two of them had been the only ones to show him any kindness in the year he had been trapped underground. Even if they had been a part of Madara and Black Zetsu’s machinations, they had still done well by him when it counted.

“Madara is no longer with us,” he declared, and the pair tensed as he stepped closer to them, so he tried to gentle his expression. It was more difficult than he remembered; after years of only anger and revenge and agony to shape his features he might have thought that this younger body of his would respond better, but it was almost like it was resisting him. “You two have been kind to me, so I will offer you this; you can either follow my decisions now, wherever they lead, or you can have the mercy of a swift death.”

Chatterbox was almost completely fused with the wall now, only his shoulders and the nervous chewing on his thumbnail left to show his apprehension, while Swirly was shaking almost imperceptibly and had taken another big step back. Obito was reminded of what Chatterbox had originally said upon his entrance to the cave, and closed his right eye to try and sense where his left was, so he could find Kakashi and Rin and maybe change things where he hadn’t been able to before.

“I am going to find my teammates, and you have until my return to decide where your loyalties lie.” Obito nodded once to each of them, and turned back to the bed. He didn’t have much time to make a disguise –if he was going to reveal himself to Konoha, it would be under his own terms and not in the midst of an attempted Kiri kidnapping. So he grabbed one of the small fabric ropes he had fashioned and a shirt he had torn up in a fit of pique, and tied it up so it fell over his ears and across his shoulders in a similar manner to the style of Suna-nin.

He was briefly distracted by his hair –it was long, as it was when he had originally gone to Kakashi and Rin, but it was _bone white._ Which made an odd sort of sense if he had been given his chakra from the moment of his death –it had probably changed him in a few more ways than simply awakening his Mangekyou.

He looked over at the wall and scoffed at the high collared cloaks Madara had kept for some reason, and instead quickly threw on one of the dark grey yukata that lurked further down. Finally he thought about how to hide his face. He missed his mask despite everything, more for the concealment of his expressions (which, if he was having a hard time with this body’s face, it would be prudent to have) but he wasn’t keen on having the exact same orange spiral mask as he used to. He wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t slide him back into the Madara-persona he’d adopted for so many years.

Well, he had died for Kakashi and his bright student, so he could see the irony in adopting a bit of the other man into his appearance, just the same as Kakashi had once taken on the young Obito’s mannerisms. He used his mokuton to fashion a wooden version of Kakashi’s face mask and felt a big part of him relax, enough so that when he concentrated on the chakra tenuously connecting him to Kakashi the swirl of Kamui transported him right into the thick of the battlefield.

Last time he had travelled by foot, and even shunshin hadn’t allowed him to make it to the clearing to stop Rin’s suicide. Today, Obito dropped directly in the middle of the battle and when he surveyed the scene it was to a much more favourable point. Kakashi was fighting a dozen Kiri-nin to his left while three Kiri Jounin held Rin down and a fourth painted seals onto her stomach to finalize the delayed time bomb for the Sanbi. Kakashi had managed to free Rin before the time-delay seals were finished and had made it part way into the Land of Fire before they caught back up. Kakashi would have freed Rin again and then, in an attack against one of these Jounin he would be the tool for her suicide.

Obito laughed lowly –Madara was gone, he no longer had to worry about Black Zetsu’s machinations, and he made it here in time. He could change this.

Kakashi could handle himself, so Obito concentrated on the Shinobi holding down his best friend. The situation took on the surreal feeling of a dream as Obito made a wooden kunai and stabbed it through the neck of the Kiri-nin drawing the seals. The three Jounin received wooden spears to the back, and while Obito felt bad about it he curled those same spikes over to pin Rin’s wrists and ankles to the ground before she could thrash upwards and contemplate killing herself.

“ _Who_ –no, _no_ , let me go!” Rin still tried to get away, sheer terror in her voice as she met Obito’s gaze. Her expression froze when she noticed that he had his Sharingan activated, and when Obito dropped to his knees next to her she strained as far in the other direction as she could.

“I won’t hurt you,” he soothed, but the same as in the cave it came out closer to his voice in adulthood, deeper and gruff, and carefully stripped of any identifying accent save for the mishmash he’d taken on after years around the various dialects of the Akatsuki. While the blunt consonants and softened tooth sounds of Iwa were the most prominent thanks to the closer proximity to Deidara near the end, he also knew he’d picked up some idioms from Kisame and still held onto his Konoha pronunciations of certain words. He grabbed the ink well from where the dead Kiri-nin was hunched over it, and made a staff of wood at his side just in case he needed to defend himself –it would last a little longer than the wooden kunai and was less obvious to repair if it was damaged. “I’m here to make sure you live.” He stole the bandana off of the dead nin next to him and imbued it with a little yang chakra, and carefully wiped away the parts of the drying seal that had to do with the time release of the Sanbi.

“I can’t, stop, _stop_ –they put the Sanbi into me –they want to set it on Konoha!” Obito continued his work despite Rin’s distress, and saw out of the corner of his eye that Kakashi was straining even harder to get to their position. There was a buzzing in his brain that he recognized dully as the signs he was getting pulled into tunnel vision, and he tried to push it back for the time being. “You have to kill me! There’s a seal –I can’t – _please_ -”

“You aren’t going to die, not today,” Obito tried to sound neutral, but it came out too rough, more like a threat than the promise he intended. He was too used to being harsh, too used to having the weight of revenge and hatred on his shoulders. “The time release on the Sanbi’s seal wasn’t finished, so I’ve reversed that. But I can’t do anything about the Bijuu except turn you into a proper Jinchuuriki. Try to get along with Isobu; when he isn’t being forced into dirty work, he’s a softy.”

“What?” Rin still looked terrified, but the confusion in her voice was mitigating that somewhat.

Obito remained quiet, and took up the ink in his better hand. To control the Jinchuuriki and extract their Bijuu he had spent almost a year cumulatively in Uzushio and elsewhere, studying all the sealing arts scrolls he could find, so he knew exactly how the process to _make_ a Jinchuuriki was done. He had managed to lay a good foundation that was closer to Naruto’s seal but would allow a little more communication, when the chirping of birds drew closer and he had to duck forward to dodge the Chidori aimed at his head. He gently placed the inkwell and brush on the ground and raised his bō staff to parry the kunai Kakashi followed up with.

“Get _away_ from her!” Kakashi snarled, his Sharingan bleeding red. He met Obito’s gaze and drew in a sharp breath at the mirrored Sharingan, but did not drop his attack.

“I’m trying to help her, trust me,” Kakashi scoffed and tried to sweep his legs out from under him, but Obito had been fighting against some of the strongest missing-nin in the world for years and a fourteen year old boy was no match against him. He managed to disarm Kakashi neatly and shunshined behind him to press the stolen kunai to his throat; Kakashi stilled instantly.

“I could kill you easily, but I’m not going to.” Obito pushed the kunai up into the cloth over Kakashi’s neck and unlike his wooden kunai, this one began to slice away at the fabric. “The girl has an unstable Bijuu-Seal left on her, and a Seal on her heart that can be used to control her will. I have to finish the first and contain the second, otherwise she’s a ticking time bomb regardless that it wouldn’t be _Kiri_ forcing her to blow up.”

“You could be _with_ Kiri,” Kakashi sounded like his voice was being torn from his throat, and he was clenching his fists so hard his arms were shaking from it. “You could be making it worse.”

“I’ve got experience with control seals, but there is nothing on earth or heaven that could make me use it on another,” not after Madara revealed everything he did, not after he was used in the same manner he used the Akatsuki. “If you don’t acquiesce, you’ll have to kill her.”

Kakashi flinched, and Obito took a chance and removed the kunai from his throat. Rather than walk Kakashi through it, he took his place again on the ground and picked up the brush and inkwell once more. He didn’t have much time before whatever faction of Kiri-nin were supervising this endeavour realized that their squads had been taken out and swarmed them as they had last time –it probably helped that Kakashi hadn’t broken away with witnesses yet.

“Sorry to have to do this,” Obito murmured to Rin, and cut open her shirt with one clean slice. “I have to contain the seal on your heart directly.”

Rin drew in a shaking breath, but nodded and intently watched his every motion. Obito fell into detachment as he painted sharp lines and characters on the girl’s chest –it was remarkably hard to separate this Rin from his even after meeting her in the afterlife. He knew that this would never be the Rin he had loved, could never be the same girl who had frowned severely at him from the Pure Land but still made him promise to repent, to _do better_ , and who had at least a passing hand in arranging his current predicament _._ Regardless, as Kakashi hovering over him like a vulture ready to pounce once the roadkill was dead, he had to acknowledge that he cared about _this_ Rin too, if to a slightly different degree. If this was a hallucination of his dying brain, at the very least he could work through his issues, and if it wasn’t, if this was _real..._

Well, he suspected that his chakra had impressed his thirty-two year old self onto this body, and he was currently hiding this fact from his two former teammates so he could save them. He couldn’t afford to decompress enough to deal with the possibility.

When the containment seal was done and set, Obito neatly used some of the longer scraps of Rin’s shirt to tie the two sides together; then he turned back to the Jinchuuriki seal. With the base laid and dried, he could draw the stability seals without worrying about whether Isobu was going to try and rebel. They stretched out over her limbs and required him to slice though a few more layers of clothing, but eventually dried enough that he could properly set them.

He lit the array with the proper amount of chakra, swirling it through the ink in just the right pattern and intensity, and that’s when he felt it. The great mass of inhuman chakra that made up the Bijuu rose a little from its new host and brushed against his mind, and maybe it was the remnants of the Juubi’s chakra tacked onto his own, but Obito _felt_ what Isobu was trying to convey.

The great chakra beast didn’t know much beyond that he had been contained against both his and Rin’s will, so his fury and indignation hit Obito like a waterfall. He jerked back mentally in time to save himself from bearing the full brunt of it and flung back his best approximation of ‘It wasn’t _me_! Talk to Rin before you try and kill everyone!’ When he came back to himself it was to find Kakashi still watching as the green glow of the seals finally settled and the Jinchuuriki matrix faded into Rin’s skin.

Rin passed out within minutes at the drain to her chakra, and Obito tore away the restraints on her wrists and ankles just in time to get a kunai shoved in his face by Kakashi, who had begun to go a little feral with a wave of protectiveness but no outlet. Obito met his gaze and held it calmly.

“Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?” Kakashi demanded, and Obito was still not sure he should tell him the truth, whether in a dream or a strange reality it would not end well with the situation as it was. The spark of a thought that this was all real had given him enough time to think, in one part of his mind, about what he should say and do with this sort of opportunity. He mentally flipped through a few of the covers he’d once kept on standby that never got utilized, and chose one that would get him into the village with minimal fuss, if more acting involved.

“Fuka,” the name in two syllables to distinguish it from the typical three syllable naming structure of Fire Country. “A defector from Iwa,” The village could be swapped in or out depending on circumstance, but with his currently more Iwa accent and the end of the war close but not there _yet_ this was the best choice. Kakashi recoiled sharply, eyes still locked with his, and the next part was why it had never come into use, especially not after Itachi joined the Akatsuki. “My mother was an Uchiha, kidnapped on a mission before I was born.”

Kakashi swallowed thickly and it was only because Obito knew him so well that he could tell the boy was feeling nauseous at the implications of Obito’s story. Bloodline theft though such a manner was the messiest, and any way you parsed it, it was bound to make a clan-affiliated Shinobi’s stomach turn. Obito hoped it would hold back any more inquiries into his motivations for at least a little while.

“So when I saw your Konoha headband, I decided to help you. Show some good will,” Obito looked down at Rin, a little lost as to what he should do beyond the here and now, since the biggest threat was dealt with. “I was headed to Konoha anyway.”

“That explains the Sharingan, even if your hair doesn’t match,” Kakashi’s gaze swept away from his and to the treeline, as he cagily shifted on the balls of his feet. “What about the eye with the rings? I’ve never seen a dojutsu that looks like that.”

Obito froze instantly, ice flooding his veins as he registered that Kakashi was talking about the _Rinnegan, Madara’s Rinnegan._ How had it followed him back? He hadn’t had it at the time of his death, it was taken by the old man and replaced with his original eye, and if it was here, if there was even a sliver of a chance that Madara wasn’t _gone-_

Kakashi made a sound of shock as Obito reached up with his artificial arm, claws where his fingernails usually were, and tore the _cursed thing_ directly out of the eye socket. Blood gushed from the wound and dripped under the rim of his wooden mask as Obito held the ringed eye up and crushed it, and then for good measure set it on fire. Kakashi was watching him with something like disgust and wariness set into his posture as he leaned over Rin protectively. Obito panted from the adrenaline and grit his teeth against the pain lancing into his skull.

“ _That eye,_ ” Obito ground out, savage, more a snarl of fury than anything. His body was tensed and ready to attack, to _kill,_ while in the back of his mind the urge to empty his stomach was strong, “Was a _curse_ meant to control me. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

When Obito stooped down to pick Rin up, Kakashi let him –he armed himself with one of the Kiri-nin’s wakizashi and eyed the forest in the vague direction of Kirigakure, and now Obito could sense it too. The very faint traces of more than a dozen chakra signatures headed their way.

“It’s a three day run to Konoha,” Kakashi said grimly, and Obito hummed in thought. When the boy looked at him in confusion, Obito noticed with a jolt that his Sharingan, in Kakashi’s face, only held _two tomoe._ Back in the other version of events, their Mangekyou had activated at the same time upon Rin’s death, but _here,_ with their teammate still alive...

“I have a better idea,” he shifted Rin and held his free arm out to Kakashi, who looked at him dubiously. “C’mon, we don’t have much time. Grab onto me.”

Kakashi looked like he was about to object, but the Kiri-nin chakra was getting closer and in the end he made a sound of frustration and acquiesced. He grabbed Obito’s artificial arm with one hand and Rin’s shoulder with his other, and met Obito’s gaze with a challenge in his eyes.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, yeah? Iwa’s enough of an enemy to last me a lifetime,” Obito attempted to joke, but by the hardening of Kakashi’s expression it didn’t come out as such. But he didn’t want to show his full hand just yet in case he needed an escape route, so he persisted. “Look, it just dredges up... bad memories. Just look away or close your eyes for the plausible deniability, and we’ll get out of here. _Or_ we could fight off Kiri-nin for three days.”

Kakashi only had to look down at Rin’s unconscious body to push him into a decision. “Get on with it then,” he grumbled and shut his eyes, and Obito let his Mangekyou activate and the wash of Kamui take them away from Kiri territory and back to the relative safety of Konoha.

They landed in the middle of the main drag, about a third of the way to the Hokage Tower from the Northern Gates, Kakashi on his feet and Obito’s knees giving out for a few hair raising moments. Before anyone could see, Obito shut off the Mangekyou and used his wooden staff to steady himself so he didn’t drop Rin. The civilians around them shrieked and backed away, while practically every Jounin in the vicinity armed themselves and braced for an attack. In hindsight, the rather flashy entrance to a Konoha only _just_ about to come out of the war with Iwa was probably not the best plan, but it was either that or fight the pursuing Kiri-nin for three days on the way back. Despite his old chakra reserves thrumming through his body, this particular use of Kamui made him a little unsteady as well, and by the time he had blinked the spots from his eyes there were a dozen kunai pointed at him and his two passengers.

“Wait, we’re Konoha! Hatake Kakashi, Nohara Rin, and Fuka, an ally!” Kakashi yelled, and with his back to Obito he made a few handsigns in the direction of the nearest Jounin, and soon all the surrounding Shinobi looked a little less likely to murder them straight away. “We need immediate medical attention and a seal master!”

“Hatake, I’ll escort you,” that was Morino Ibiki, who eyed Obito with the calculation one would expect from any T&I shinobi. “Kotsuga, fetch Uzumaki Kushina and meet us at the Hospital.”

Kakashi turned to him, still on edge and wild eyed, but the expression he hid was one of relief. “Fuka-san, do you have the chakra left to shunshin?”

“Lead the way,” Obito actually wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t pass out even if he did theoretically have the chakra to spare, but he hitched Rin’s unconscious body up even so and took off after them. The first pause on the roof of an apartment building did indeed wrench a groan and a bit of dizziness out of him, but he grit his teeth and pushed through it. He had suffered far worse for less, and this wasn’t about to be what took him down.

The second pause just past Ichiraku Ramen was easier, and by the third pause he had regained his equilibrium for the most part. When they finally touched down outside of the front doors of the hospital, Obito was no longer nauseous and instead managed to follow Ibiki and Kakashi through the halls to the Jounin-level section without falter. They reached a closed portion on the floor that Obito only knew of from his intel-gathering years –it was for S-Rank injuries, where the secrecy of the incident outweighed the input of a wider array of Medic-nin. ANBU were taken here, for example, and when they entered a room that already contained both Uzumaki Kushina and the Sandaime Hokage, Obito understood why they were here when Kakashi hadn’t mentioned the Sanbi as far as he was aware. The need for a Seal Master was reason enough.

“What’s happened?” Kushina demanded as Obito lowered Rin onto the hospital bed, already scanning the girl with a rudimentary medical jutsu. When she passed her stomach and the seal revealed itself she sucked in a startled breath and whipped her head up to stare at Obito incredulously. “What did _you do_?”

Seeing Kushina was more painful than he had expected. The woman he had caused to die, to never get to know her own son or achieve her dream of becoming Hokage. Only in his most vulnerable moments had he ever thought he was wrong, but he had never regretted it, not really. He did now. So many years thinking it was justified, thinking it was all for the greater good, but it was just more blood. The further staining of his hands, and Obito had to force himself back to the present before he did something stupid like beg forgiveness on his knees.

“She had the Sanbi sealed into her, with the intent to use it as a suicide bomb against Konoha,” he told her simply. “I fixed the seal on her stomach, made it into a third level Jinchuuriki matrix. The seal on her heart I contained as best I could –it’s a coercion seal, it prevents her from killing the wielder as well as herself, and would bend her actions to the seal-user’s will.” He looked past Kushina to the Hokage, who was pale and wan with shock but hiding it remarkably well. “I believe they’ve set properly, but they should be inspected by someone with proper training. I’ve done all I can.”

“A fucking _Jinchuuriki matrix._ ” Kushina snarled under her breath, and began cutting away Rin’s clothes, one of the S-Rank section nurses appearing behind her to drape a few towels down so Rin had a semblance of privacy. Kushina continued muttering and cursing her way around the ink, occasionally prodding at a specific section, but never with any real alarm from a _mistake._ The tight grip around Obito’s heart eased a little –he had managed to fix it.

“And you are?” the Hokage asked mildly, his gaze taking in all of Obito, which was admittedly something of a patchwork image. His feet were bare, he wore a dark grey yukata older than the Sannin which put his rather impressive amount of scars on full display –basically the entire right half of his body was one big scar. He was still wearing the wooden mask and hastily tied blue head scarf over his long, jagged white hair, and with the drama of discovering the Rinnegan had returned with him his left eye was basically a macabre smear of blood and ripped tissue over an empty socket. Obito realized that he still had his Sharingan activated, and when he tried to deactivate it, it resisted. He grit his teeth and _forced_ it into submission, which would show that he at least had not stolen the eye, but the whole time it sat in his skull it wasn’t truly dormant –it was waiting for Obito to drop his guard so it could surge back to life again.

Who was he?

Obito could reveal who he really was right now, and it would be fine. This was practically the perfect moment to do so; on the heels of rescuing a pair of Konoha shinobi, demonstrating a good ability in the sealing arts and standing directly in front of the head of the village with his sensei’s wife checking his handiwork and Morino Ibiki as a witness to his ease in use of the Sharingan. There would likely be some interrogation and emotion from his old teammates, but it would be quickly confirmed and he could settle back into a peaceful Konoha without the threat of Madara or Black Zetsu over his head.

When he spoke with Naruto, the young man had ripped his delusions apart. He had seen himself as he might have been in some other, better past, where he was a fully fledged Konoha shinobi, where he had won the Uchiha to his side and become the Godaime. If he revealed himself now, he could accomplish all of that. He could have his old life back.

But even though Naruto was right about his true heart’s regrets, there was still the matter of his ambitions. Obito hadn’t _wanted_ his life to go back to the way it was ever since he had seen evidence of Danzo’s dealings with Orochimaru and the children he had brainwashed for his endeavours. At the very least Obito could be clear in his conscious in comparison to that, and he had accepted Itachi’s plan at thirteen but he had never made any of his Akatsuki turn themselves on their loved ones through _force_. He had blatantly taken control like with Yagura, but had never twisted someone’s mind so badly that they thought they were acting of their own free will yet didn’t even know who they were any longer; that was what Madara did with his Forbidden Individual Curse Tag; that was what Black Zetsu did when he approached those suffering loss and played on their weaknesses.

Obito still hated this world and its blood soaked legacy. If he became Uchiha Obito once more, returned from the dead to the direct scrutiny of the Sandaime and future Yondamie, he would have his life back but not the chance to change the lives of others. He thought of Rin’s ghost, and silently promised her that he would use this time on the high road to do her proud.

“My name is Fuka, Hokage-sama,” he inclined his head formally; well aware Kakashi was listening for inconsistencies. “I was on my way to Konohagakure when I found your two shinobi under siege by Kiri-nin. I had previously defected from Iwagakure after I uncovered my mother’s identity as a kidnapped Uchiha kunoichi.”

If they hadn’t already been watching him, every remaining head in the room whirled to stare at him in shock right then, the heaviest weight of whom was the Hokage himself. Kushina and the nurses quickly shook off their incredulity and went back to inspecting Rin, while Obito stood calmly under the weight of Sarutobi’s stare –Madara and Black Zetsu and the reanimated corpse of Minato had been far worse.

“This is... very unprecedented, Fuka-kun,” the Hokage said, which was a remarkably polite way to phrase ‘we can’t be sure you aren’t an Iwa spy even though you have the Sharingan and the war is weeks away from ending anyway’. Obito inclined his head and looked over again at Rin on the hospital bed and then to Kakashi hovering just past the range of Kushina’s movement, on edge but not suffering under the guilt of being the catalyst for his teammate’s death. The band around Obito’s heart eased further, and he breathed in deeply.

“I would of course submit myself for interrogation, Hokage-sama.”

This wasn’t exactly the way he had expected his day to go. From beginning early in the morning with his goal of taking over the world, to sacrificing himself and resigned to his death, to waking in the cavern of the Flowering Tree and resolving to rescue Kakashi and Rin from Kiri, it had been all around the longest and most uncertain, exhausting day of his life. He still couldn’t be sure that this _wasn’t_ some extremely detailed hallucination forced upon him by the Shinigami to lull him into a false sense of security. The other kunai could still come down at any moment.

But he was in a place that was safe, for the moment. He could unspool himself enough to process the spark of a thought that this _was_ real, somehow. And if he accepted that as the truth, if he believed this wasn’t a dream, that meant he could change things. It meant that Obito wasn’t living in a false world, and if he decided to, he could truly atone for all he had done.

VVV

Three days into the interrogation of one Fuka, formerly of Iwa, and Ibiki no longer registered the raging headache behind his eyes. He was standing on the other side of the observation glass with a recently arrived Hokage, watching Yuuto –one of their best Jounin interrogators –have circles run round him by the stranger’s calculated answers. Fuka was blindfolded due to the reactivation of his Sharingan, which the man had explained was a habit from living on the run for so long and was too troublesome to turn off. He sat straight backed and followed Yuuto’s motions with small tilts of his head as if he could see clear as day, and the one time the previous interrogator’s hand had come too close to his mask, Fuka had reared forward lightning fast and broken Koshi’s finger for the slight. Otherwise everything had been perfectly polite throughout the whole three days, but by the time Yuuto ducked out with a sigh Ibiki had to admit that maybe they were a little outmatched here.

“His answers are consistent with someone telling the truth. The only thing I can glean off of his subconscious reactions is that he’s affected by the mention of certain people. Specifically Nohara Rin, Hatake Kakashi, and when we tried to pry into which Iwa Jounin was his sensei.” Yuuto glanced back at the glass and jolted slightly when he saw that Fuka’s head was turned in their direction. “It might be time for a Yamanaka.”

Ibiki didn’t like relying on the Mind Jutsu of the Yamanaka –it made the regular T&I Jounin lax, and Ibiki fucking loathed sloppy work. But this had been among the most frustrating interrogations he had ever seen, and he wasn’t one to waste resources on a shinobi the Hokage probably wanted to give the benefit of the doubt in the long run.

“I called Inoichi-taicho in a half hour ago,” he said, just to watch Yuuto’s expression turn peeved. He wouldn’t get complacent for a few more weeks with the small slight itching at him. “Go clock out, I won’t have you collapsing because you tried to pull a double while we’re down here.”

“Yes, sir,” Yuuto exited the observation room as Inoichi entered, and he took a moment to study the man on the other side of the glass. Fuka really was an absolute mess of different countries, it was almost funny; what sort of Iwa shinobi paired a Suna-style head wrap with a Konoha face mask and a yukata tied up in the same manner as the typical Ame civilian?

“He looks like he tried everything to throw off whoever was pursuing him,” Inoichi commented lightly, and Ibiki took Fuka’s appearance in at a new angle. The hair and scars were so distinctive that he had probably grabbed any scraps of clothing he’d come across after defecting to try and throw Iwa’s Hunter-nin off of his trail. After all, that village tolerated deserters much less than any other, especially if Fuka had run in the middle of the war as he had implied heavily throughout the questioning. He even tried to put on a vaguely Fire Country dialect every so often before inevitably reverting to his Rock Country accent; speech was the hardest thing for a lot of shinobi to switch out if only due to the sheer complexity of some of the different dialects among the nations.

“Evading Iwa would certainly have slowed him down.” The Hokage observed, and they looked at Fuka’s feet, which besides being scratched all to hell and covered with dirt and grime were thickly calloused, the nails overlong and chipped. “Word of the ceasefire only recently spread. Did you say he began to head here in earnest a week or so ago?”

“Well, he _implied_ so.” Ibiki huffed; the whole interrogation had been a farce, a show. Fuka formerly of Iwa was smart enough to give generalities and implications while under the watch of someone who could only guess at the truth, and kept his full honesty for someone who would be able to confirm it. At the same time, he gave enough over the last three hours that there wasn’t much Ibiki could say against him –if he really was an Iwa-nin trying to get in a good spying position, he was a damn bad actor. Only those shinobi who had _actually_ defected were so open speaking of themselves and their original village, and even under the subterfuge of Fuka’s half-truths he was revealing far more than a spy could afford to. “I’ve been observing the whole time, so I don’t think you need to confirm his life story, Taicho, but these are probably a good run.”

Inoichi took the paper Ibiki had been scrawling on throughout the questioning and memorized the list, and nodded once at his assessment of the situation. “I’ll use a less invasive version of the technique. Surface scenes, emotions, I’ll only delve into his psyche if I feel it necessary. Is that acceptable, Hokage-sama?”

The old man looked at Fuka, and there was still a sharpness in his expression that reminded Ibiki why their leader was called the God of Shinobi. After a tense moment he nodded his agreement, and they settled to watch the Head of T&I take his crack at Fuka.

“Fuka-san, I’ll be your interrogator now,” Inoichi greeted politely, and placed himself on the opposite side of the table from where Fuka was bound to his chair. Oddly, this statement actually seemed to inspire a reaction from the unflappable man –he twitched violently and his head snapped straight in the direction of Inoichi, still with the blindfold blocking his vision. Ibiki wondered if his Sharingan gave him some sort of true sight. “I’m going to be using a technique on you that requires me to place my hand on your forehead, so please keep still.”

“Wait,” Fuka ground out, his voice carefully controlled. “My eye, the one I tore out –it was _cursed._ Don’t get near it if you can.”

 _Cursed._ The man had spoken of Jinchuuriki matrixes and coercion seals with the air of discussing the weather, but whatever had been within his eye had him spooked enough to warn Inoichi away from it. Ibiki had already received Kakashi’s report, which mentioned the abrupt way Fuka had gone from calm to tearing his eye out in what Kakashi pegged as fury and terror. The man had even refused medical ninjutsu when one of the nurses approached him before Ibiki escorted him down here –he had used the sink in the adjacent washroom to wipe off the blood from his face and had only accepted a gauze pad to tape over the empty socket when a nurse insisted.

“I’ll do my best,” Inoichi said, and swiftly placed his hand on Fuka’s forehead. He ignored the sharp intake of breath from the former Iwa-nin and closed his eyes to concentrate. “What is your name?”

Ibiki watched Fuka intently –the first few questions established the bare basics for Inoichi to jump off of, and it was the easiest tell since all of Inoichi’s considerable chakra was focusing on reading whether Fuka was telling the truth or not. After a long pause Fuka shuddered, like he had eaten something spoiled, and then he was still.

“Fuka. My name is Fuka.” The man inhaled deeply, and let it out slowly. “I have no surname to claim, yet.”

Ibiki flicked his eyes over to Inoichi, whose scrunched expression had eased a degree. Ibiki had seen this same scene when the shinobi being questioned was _lying_ , and Inoichi hadn’t hesitated to use his jutsu to its full extent and simply rifle through the man’s memories within minutes. That he wasn’t doing the same here was a good sign in Fuka’s favour. “What is your home village?”

“I was raised in Iwagakure.” Fuka had relaxed as well, or at least enough that he was no longer straining the rope with his arms. “But it never embraced me. I was an outsider.”

Again Inoichi did not react other than to ask his next question, “Who are your parents?”

“My mother’s name was Uchiha Kaname. I never met her, for she died before I was born.” The timelines matched up well enough. Uchiha Kaname had gone missing on a supply run about seventeen years ago, which had been a big reason that when the Second War began, the Uchiha were out in force. Fuka could very well be sixteen even if they couldn’t see his face. “My father was not named in the reports I read. I never met him either, in any case.”

“Why did you defect from Iwa?”

“I found out how I was _made_ ,” Fuka snarled, and it was the first show of real emotion Ibiki had seen, uncontrolled and boiling over. “Konoha used to have the Nidaime for its experimental jutsu development, right? Well we had Zetsu, but he wasn’t sanctioned and it wasn’t only _jutsus_ he was developing. He only stopped when an earthquake dropped a lucky boulder on his head.” Fuka sounded viciously satisfied at his own words. “I was a normal citizen for a decade, though being an orphan and watched by his men made me an outcast. They were waiting for the Uchiha blood to show itself, but it never reared its head. Later I found out Zetsu speculated that my father’s genetics had messed me up, made the Uchiha genes dormant.”

“Then my... my Jounin-sensei,” Fuka stopped and had to breath for a minute to regain his composure. “When Zetsu died around my tenth birthday, when I graduated the academy, he took up the observation. Manipulated me and my teammates to try and draw the Sharingan out. It didn’t work, sending us out on harder and harder missions, so when he found out that trauma can push the process along-”

Fuka stopped again, and it was here that Inoichi’s brows furrowed; he was raising his hand to make a sign when Fuka let out a breath and went on.

“One of my teammates killed the other. Then I blamed him for it, and he spiralled and was killed on a mission. Once it was only me and Sensei left, it all got worse. That wasn’t training, it was –torture, experimentation. And anyone I worked with died as well. So I went digging. I couldn’t determine whether Tsuchikage-sama knew of me, but he certainly didn’t care enough to investigate what Zetsu had done, what _Madara_ had done. I couldn’t stay, and I left.”

Zetsu, a man who had the Nidaime’s prowess in experimentation but used it for _bloodline theft,_ who hadn’t been stopped until happenstance had taken his head, and Madara, a Jounin linked to him who had driven what sounded like too many Iwa-nin to death and desertion. What a fucking mess.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen. I defected when I was thirteen.”

“He’s been living in the woods for three years?” Ibiki murmured, and the Hokage made a noise in response that could have either been considering or disbelieving.

“How did you activate your Sharingan?”

Fuka shrugged, a motion that seemed particularly dissonant with the rest of the questioning up to now. “Honestly? I have no clue now. I thought it was when my teammates died, but Sensei’s torture notes never talked about it, just the seal. My best guess is it was around when I killed him. I just got used to having it activated all the time, so now it’s practically stuck like this.”

Inoichi hummed, and mentally Ibiki had been counting down –there were only three more questions in the rotation, though it was safe to say there would only be more questions brought up in the wake of Fuka’s answers. Already there was a lot of shit to unpack. When Inoichi asked about Fuka’s knowledge of the Sealing Arts he huffed as if he hadn’t been expecting the line of inquiry, and ended up answering two of the questions in one go.

“When you pester the village’s Jinchuuriki enough for training, you become the person who gets the ‘suggestion’ of studying the _very_ small stock of Sealing Arts scrolls from Uzushio that the records hall keeps. In case they needed someone who could one day restrain them.” Fuka snorted unkindly. “Like hell I wanted to do that, but Madara-sensei _insisted._ And by that I mean he forced me until I could probably do the whole ritual myself with enough chakra behind me. He was nothing if not a perfectionist. Besides, I figured that if I learnt the hardest level of Sealing Arts there is, I could use it to deconstruct the Seals placed on _me_.”

“You’ve got Seals inscribed on you?” Inoichi asked with a touch of alarm, and Ibiki nearly barged in along with them –there were a million ways a Seal could be deadly to an unprepared Yamanaka –but Fuka managed to wave his hand enough to convey that they should calm down.

“ _Not anymore._ There’s a reason I managed to contain the Curse Tag on Nohara-san –because _this_ was the result of my trial run.” He raised his shoulder on the side of his body that was scarred, explanation enough.

“...okay, nearly done, Fuka-san.”

“Alright, lay it on me.”

“What do you want from Konoha?”

This time Fuka didn’t bullshit his way around the question, nor did he blankly fling the truth in Inoichi’s face. He wasn’t overly lackadaisical nor did he surge upwards in a tidal wave of emotion. Ibiki watched as the teenager’s shoulders straightened and his fingers stilled, curled around the edges of the chair, and everything about him quieted in a moment. He shifted his neck just enough that he was facing the glass partition, and it was a shinobi waiting for the signal to kill that spoke to them.

“Hokage-sama, if I could be frank?”

Beside him, the Hokage inclined his head, and against odds Fuka managed to guess that he’d been given that permission.

“What I want from Konoha isn’t important. Steady employment, a roof over my head, _family,_ I could live without it all. I have. It doesn’t matter whether I’m a shinobi of Konoha or a missing-nin sleeping in a ditch in Kusa.” Ibiki was experienced in interrogation, knew more than most about how to tell truth from lies, and as far as he could tell Fuka _believed_ what he was saying wholeheartedly. It didn’t make him trustworthy, but if the Hokage ended up contacting Fugaku then Ibiki wouldn’t be the first to protest. “I will accomplish it wherever I find myself. I want children to stop dying, I never want to see another comrade forced to kill their own, or for whole clans to be wiped out for the greater good. I want peace, true, active peace that is not patched together with ink or paper but held up through the investment of all people.”

Inoichi visibly swallowed, and went off script a little. “That is an enormous undertaking. You’d do anything to accomplish it?”

Fuka _scoffed_ , as if the village’s best interrogator trying to figure out whether he would potentially assassinate some Councilman or Clan Head was funny. “A means is justified by its end, but that end in turn needs to be justified. I would do anything that would _actually_ lead to peace –precisely here it becomes clear that _not_ all means are permissible. Achieving active peace spurns the methods which would divorce the majority of people from involvement, or sets one part of the people against the other, or which would _create more conflict.”_ He turned back to address Inoichi, rather than the glass and the Hokage. “Wars are not fought over mere _land_ , they are fought over access to resources. All the way back to the Warring Clans this has been the case at the beginning. To have peace you must end war, and to end war you must eliminate the lack of resources. So, Konoha has nothing I want, really. Or everything, if you look at it right.”

“Kami, this guy’s a little fucked,” Ibiki muttered, but at least it was fucked up in a weirdly reasonable, methodical way. They could’ve always gotten the kind of fucked up that resulted in episodes like Uchiha Madara releasing the Kyuubi on the village, or the Sannins’ _everything._

“I’ve heard enough,” the Hokage pronounced, and rapped twice on the glass partition. Inoichi removed his hand from Fuka’s head, prompting a relieved slump from the teenager, and said a few parting words before he exited the room.

“He’s certainly hell bent on that goal of his,” Inoichi looked back with a wry twist to his lips. “He was extremely straightforward throughout the interrogation not only in his answers but in the feelings and scenes associated with them. Many of the memories were murky, but that’s normal for any memories before the age of fifteen, and the clearest ones –the ones he associated with the most trauma –they matched up with what he told me. The only time I felt inclined to probe more deeply was just before he told me of his teammate killing the other and a riot of emotion pushed me back. But again, it cleared quickly.” Inoichi huffed and crossed his arms. “My prognosis? He’ll be an asset if we can prove more honest with him than his experience of Iwa, and there’s a low possibility of him turning into an internal threat. I’d say he’s more likely to just _leave_ if he’s displeased with Konoha rather than lash out.”

“Should we contact the Uchiha so soon? They aren’t exactly known for their flexibility,” Ibiki had more respect for their practises than what the Hyuga did to ensure their dojutsu’s safety, but only just. If they kept isolating themselves to avoid the Senju Clan’s fate, bending the stick too far in the other direction, then he might have to change his opinion. “Just a day or two’s wait, give him a chance to clean up and decompress in a neutral zone. There isn’t any chatter about him being an Uchiha despite the flashy entrance.”

“He has cooperated enough, so I will give him the option,” the Hokage reached up and closed the blinds on the observation window. “I expect the report on my desk by tomorrow night, you’re both dismissed.”

Once his Head and Vicehead of T&I had left, Hiruzen entered the room. The young man who had delivered Minato’s students back to them was tightly secured to the lone chair, with a blindfold over his eyes and his mask and headscarf still in place, and when he sensed he was no longer alone he tilted his head to meet the approximate place he was standing.

“Shinobi Fuka, you have been cleared to reside in Konohagakure and have been granted citizenship by the confirmation of your Uchiha heritage.” Hiruzen reached over and pulled the blindfold off –the boy’s eye did not meet his until Fuka had deactivated the Sharingan, and then he met Hiruzen’s gaze squarely. “For the first three months at least you will be placed under watch by no lower rank than a Jounin, during which time you will be subject to weekly meetings with a suitable T&I psych-nin. Should the probationary period pass satisfactorily, you may choose to integrate into the ranks of our Chuunin, on consideration of your skill in Sealing and the proficiency exhibited in both your combat and Sharingan use. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Hokage-sama.”

“The conditions of your citizenship are as follows; barring express permission from myself, you will remain in village for the first year of residence, and if entering the forces, for the first five years of missions you will not travel to Rock Country or its allies. You are to share your Sealing knowledge with our resident practitioners and if skilled enough you will accept an apprentice. Under supervision you will work with Nohara Rin to explain the intricacies of both of the Seals placed upon her, and to help her in communicating with the Sanbi –since you expressed familiarity.” Fuka twitched slightly and sighed, but nodded his consent. “Finally, you will reveal your face to me and the shinobi I assign to your psychological evaluations.”

“No,” Fuka’s hackles rose immediately, and Hiruzen quirked an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

“The last condition is nonnegotiable. In fact, it is Konoha law.” Many Shinobi tied masks into their appearances following trauma or loss, and it had been recognized very early on in the village’s existence that just like provisions to accepting missing-nin of certain varieties, there must be a way to verify identity without triggering a vulnerable member of their ranks. Tobirama-sensei had been the one to draft the law which specified that any masked Shinobi must routinely confirm their face with the Hokage and one other person, usually whoever was assigned to their psychological evaluations. The courtesy was extended to cooperating prisoners. “This is my offer.”

Fuka made a low noise of frustration, but after a few seconds gave in. “Fine,” he sat up as much as the bindings would allow and tried to appear relaxed, but the rhythmic clenching of his hands around the arms of the chair spoke volumes. “I accept, Hokage-sama.”

Hiruzen nodded once, and took a step closer to cut the ropes off of the boy’s arms. Fuka eased them up to give his muscles time to adjust, and slowly began divesting himself of his layers. First came the headscarf and tie for it, which he dumped in his lap unceremoniously; it revealed an ear just as scarred as the rest of his body and long hair which didn’t possess the typical Uchiha stiffness, due by his own admittance to its turning white from _stress_ of all things. The Sharingan flickered in and out as he gripped the edges of the wooden mask, but Hiruzen was patient. Better to let the boy do this himself instead of using blatant force.

Hiruzen found himself unpleasantly surprised when the boy finally revealed his face to him.

The white hair and pad of gauze over his empty eye obscured it somewhat, but behind the mask the ghost of Uchiha Obito looked back at him, half his face scarred beyond belief and a frown where he had once smiled, but all the same. As Hiruzen stared, startled, the boy’s features deviated from Obito’s as he grimaced deeply and averted the still flickering Sharingan eye in discomfort.

“Obito?” He had to ask, foolish as it made him feel. The boy whose death had hardened Minato to the war against Iwa, had broken Kakashi’s spine of steel, and lit the fire under Rin’s feet would always be burned into his mind. If this boy wasn’t Obito, he could practically be his twin.

Fuka reacted to his question, but not positively –not even negatively, really. He raised an eyebrow and steadily grew paler from the absence of his mask if his grip on the thing was any indication, and practically radiated discomfort with Hiruzen’s inspection. “I’m... sorry?” he looked genuinely confused and off kilter at the unthinking query, and there wasn’t even a hint of recognition at the name, nor any hesitation in his body language. “If –If it’s a Konoha thing to rename new additions then –then I have to vehemently decline, Hokage-sama. I’d rather be an ‘impossibility’ than a ‘respectable person’.”

Hiruzen shook himself of the overlay of the dead boy and took in Fuka once more. Underneath the scars and the remaining blood stains from his eye, he had too wide of a jaw to be Obito, and his Sharingan was different from the one gifted to Kakashi –it possessed three tomoe rather than two.

“I apologize, Fuka-kun. You may replace your mask.” Without hesitation the boy moved to do so, and without the lower half of his face exposed the resemblance to Obito was lessened enough that Hiruzen also picked out that his eyebrows were shaped differently. “You have an... uncanny resemblance to a deceased cousin of yours. Your name remains your own.” The boy nodded and fiddled with the headscarf as he retied it, trying to tame his mass of hair at the same time. “I also wished to give you the option of delaying your introduction to the Uchiha Clan Head for a few days. Stay at an inn, decompress and get cleaned up before you have to worry about it. I would arrange an allowance for you to purchase some clothes and food and such, if you are inclined. Otherwise I can contact Fugaku immediately.”

“I’ll wait, thank you, Hokage-sama,” Fuka said, his voice subdued. “I just realized what me being here actually means, and I’ve... erm, there aren’t many obligations when you grow up an orphan.”

“I can sympathize.” Hiruzen took the opportunity to cut away the rest of the restraints and offered an arm when Fuka stumbled upon standing –despite the boy’s recent history, his grip was strong for the few seconds he allowed the assistance. “If you follow me, I’ll have a Chuunin summoned to help you settle in.”

“Thank you, Hokage-sama,” Fuka’s Sharingan settled back into his eye then, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased. Hiruzen pointedly ignored it –three years living in the woods avoiding Iwa would affect anyone.

VVV

Once he had thanked the Chuunin escort and accepted the envelope with his stipend inside, when he had closed the door to the Inn room and hastily inscribed some scrap paper with privacy and surveillance wards around the exits, and finally shut himself in the cramped bathroom, Fuka took off the pad of gauze from his eye.

Obito gasped at the drain of chakra; the Genjutsu he had cast upon himself and anchored to the seal hastily scrawled on the bandage washed away like a bad dream and finally allowed him to think like himself again. Fuck, that wasn’t something he wanted to repeat any time soon. Inoichi was a tricky bastard –he had almost seen through it when Obito’s mind was shaken at the remembrance of what happened the first time around for his teammates. But Genjutsu worked best when tied into the truth, and the parts of Fuka he had fabricated would stick well with the slices of his original timeline to hold them together.

Even then, he’d forgotten about the mask. He’d crafted Fuka to be attached to the thing, think of it as almost a security blanket, with the intent to put off any particularly enterprising attempts to get him to remove it. The Hokage had seen him, yes, but by his swift backing off and sheer disbelief at recognizing his face, he didn’t think he’d have to worry about anything more than a vague suspicion from the old man. There was something to be said for using people’s grief against them, and-

Obito paused the thought and stared at his reflection in the mirror. There hadn’t been many opportunities for vanity in the cave, nor in the close to twenty years he’d been playing at Madara since that first dark day with only the old man for company. Once, near the end, he’d allowed Kisame into his rooms following... it must have been Hidan’s death for the flashbacks it caused, but it could very well have been Nagato. The last years blurred together until he’d killed Konan. But regardless, there had been once that Kisame had sat with him in the dim room, and then Obito had removed his mask to allow him to cut his hair with a spare kunai. Just a few inches had accumulated, but it was enough to feel and that had been about the extent of his experience of care.

Here again, his hair was long and oily from a year underground. He’d brushed it occasionally, but the comb was slapdash and he only kept it from matting out of sheer stubborn refusal. His facial scars were not quite deepened to the degree age would turn them, but they had begun to creep down the rest of his body, as if trying to remind him that it was scar tissue, not merely new skin from the false Hashirama. When he removed the mask, he noticed that the two little birth marks he once had were gone and replaced by a smaller one on his other cheek. His Sharingan glowed in the dimness of the washroom lamp, his other eye empty and now sporting the beginnings of a scar he’d never had in any lifetime. He looked too much like Madara after absorbing the Bijuu.

What was he _doing?_ He was supposed to be bettering himself, he’d promised both Kakashi and Rin and he was here in Konoha again but for what? He knew that slotting back into his old life wouldn’t help him, but how was he going to make posing as some random Uchiha into a concrete plan to get him closer to his goal? He needed to push the world around them to come together, because despite that he would no longer push for it, there were still places in the Countries that spun close to the brink of a Fourth War even now. Kiri could implode based on the Bloodline Purges or the oppressive Caste System, Taki and Suna’s treatment of their respective Jinchuuriki were _concerning_ , or the fact that in a few short years Kumo would attempt to kidnap the Hyuuga heiress. But Obito had committed himself to this farce, and it wouldn’t be easy to back out of it now.

He removed the head covering and threw it along with the dirty yukata he was wearing in the corner of the washroom, and put the mask in the sink so he could scrape off the crusted blood with his nails. He placed it aside to dry and turned to the tap and wash bucket next to the tub with relief; the three days in T&I had been intense and uncomfortable, but they hadn’t tortured him, just let him stew in his own sweat since prisoners weren’t granted showers unless they were there over a week.

The first bucket of hot water he dumped over his head was indescribable. Sure, in the twenty years since the first Kannabi Bridge mission he’d kept himself _clean,_ but it always edged close to being a chore, short and utilitarian. To keep himself in Madara’s mindset he had cut out luxuries for his goal, vanity for his mask, and self care for the cold logic of efficiency. He filled the bucket again and gasped at the feeling of the water against his skin, and he watched the drain slowly begin to take away the dirt and oil he was covered in. His mind was better adjusted, but his body had still been in that cavern for the past year –while there had been a pool of water, he had preferred to keep it for drinking even though he didn’t quite _need_ to. He dumped more water on his head and took a wide comb to his hair with trepidation, for he knew that if he tried to go too fast it would just tangle all to hell.

A few more minutes passed this way before he judged that he could shampoo the mass of hair without dire consequences. While he did this, he wondered if he should cut it all off and save himself the trouble, but something stopped him. If he really was going to stick to being Fuka for a while, he should keep as many of his features as different from the younger Obito’s as possible. He had already bought a replacement head scarf while out with the Chuunin earlier, because if people heard about the Iwa defector that would be joining Konoha’s ranks they would be less likely to catch on at first if he kept up the clashing dress style. Washing out the shampoo, Obito reached for another luxury he hadn’t seen in over a decade; conditioner. Hopefully it would make things a little easier to maintain if he started on a good footing now.

Besides, Kisame was the only one he ever let cut his hair –the only person he had been able to trust near his neck. If there was any motivation to winning the not-yet Akatsuki members over to his cause, it would be receiving a haircut from someone he trusted.

Obito paused with the washcloth at the innocuous thought –was that what he wanted to do? Recreate the Akatsuki and use it again, but this time for the right reasons, for a better future, without letting them die so needlessly? Could he trust himself to do so and not drive them to destruction once more?

He washed his shoulders, his upper arms, and contemplated what _Fuka_ had said in the interrogation. There was a notion Obito had quietly nursed in his saner moments, that the cause of war was really a fight over access to resources –certainly it was more plausible than some unknown ‘tension’ pushing thousands of Shinobi into battle and slaughter. Regardless of how Konoha wanted to see it, they had been nervous at the recovery of the smaller nations that were decimated in the Second War, and when Iwa began to court some of them there was the sudden threat of the loss of _missions_ , and that was the real reason for the building conflict. But if that was going to be his point of origin, where should he begin in combating it? Obito shuddered as he dunked another bucket of water over his body, feeling cleaner than he had in –well, longer than he could remember at the moment.

There was also the little detail Fuka had put forth about not all means being justified. Obito had only begun to consider that after being dragged through his regrets by Naruto; previously, he had always simply, _naively_ thought that if the end goal was peace, then it didn’t matter how they reached it.

But that wasn’t realistic. When the Akatsuki killed, people were spurned to taking revenge. Under his control, Yagura had gone off the rails and begun the Bloodline Purges, more susceptible to the Water Country Daimyo’s whims than if he’d been in control of himself. The Uchiha Massacre had eventually led to Sasuke’s _everything._ Obito had done his damnedest to force the world into a peace of his own design, a peace that none of them ever wanted and they had fought tooth and nail to defeat him, and succeeded. He was going to have to take a different approach this time, or risk repeating all of his mistakes.

Obito took up the comb and as he periodically dumped water over his head he brushed his hair out –and large clumps joined the water as it rushed into the drain on the floor. He remembered something similar happening after taking up Madara’s identity, but by then he had been so consumed by hate and madness that it hadn’t really registered as a symptom of the stress he’d been under. Once he was satisfied with the lack of grime on him, he tied his hair back and clambered into the tub without hesitation.

The various Akatsuki bases had only ever offered showers, but Obito had once loved the simple comfort of a bath. And as he was submerged in the cloying, soothing heat of the water, his face bared and the low murmur of conversation from the floor above, he relaxed. As he relaxed he could feel the nearby beat of an idle ANBU chakra signature, and he looked at his hands, one rough and tan and the other pale white, just enough of a tint to it that it passed for scar tissue.

He was here, in the Konoha that still held Rin, Minato, and Kushina –all of them alive and well. Kakashi had changed from the boy at the beginning of the Kannabi Bridge mission. The Uchiha were alive and not yet in the throes of trying to counter Danzo’s machinations even if they had a lot of problems he would need to see to. The Akatsuki had yet to suffer the loss of Yahiko, and if he remembered right, Kisame was still a loyal Shinobi of Kiri. Even Orochimaru had not yet been discovered and driven out of Konoha, despite both of his teammates leaving him behind.

No, there was much he could still do. He had already saved Rin and spared Kakashi further grief. It was the opposite of how things had gone in that other future, and Obito was immeasurably glad for it. Maybe he should try the same tactic with a few of the other points he was going to interfere in.

Obito soaked in the water and felt the urge to cry sneak up on him, and he was sure if he gave in he would find some relief. But in all the years since Rin’s death he hadn’t let any tears fall; they had seemed to dry up alongside her blood on his hands. He knew they wouldn’t be making their return just yet.

VVV

Obito spent the following day back in T&I, this time filling out paperwork in triplicate –one copy for the village records, one for the Uchiha records, and one for himself –and enduring the first meeting with the psych-nin in charge of his regular evaluations. This was done in the presence of the Hokage so his face could be confirmed, but otherwise it was simply a formal introduction rather than an actual appointment. He was given the dates and times for his first three sessions, and then returned to filling out paperwork.

He followed the same Chuunin from the day before around and was shown the location of all the important administrative buildings, a few restaurants and weapons shops the man recommended, and then the training grounds designated for the public and retired or on leave Shinobi. Obito didn’t know if he was actually going to put himself through the ordeal of being a Konoha Shinobi once more and so he didn’t purchase any weapons or pieces of reinforced clothing, but he would definitely make use of the grounds.

In the evening he accepted the Hokage’s proposal that he meet with Fugaku the next morning. Once his seals were set up again in the inn room he created a shadow clone to fill his bed for the night, and then pushed for Kamui to return him to the Mountain’s Graveyard.

“O-Obito-kun!” Chatterbox was there, hovering near to one of the half-formed Zetsu of the Flowering Tree, while Swirly was nowhere to be seen. Obito tried not to let his trepidation show as he removed his mask –the other Zetsu had always been a little more _into_ Madara and Black Zetsu’s plans than Chatty. “You’re back! Er, not that I thought you’d stay away! But you never gave a time and it’s been almost a week and...”

“I was otherwise occupied,” Obito said absently, steps bringing him up to the dais where Madara’s throne still stood. He refrained from touching it and instead looked up to where the lotus flower held up the Gedo Statue; he would have to destroy that at some point to prevent even the _chance_ that someone would attempt the Juubi resurrection. “What is your answer to my offer?”

“Um...” Chatterbox hesitated for a long minute, but he didn’t appear to be bracing himself for an attack. “First, uh, Madara-sama’s really _gone_? What does that mean, is he dead? It’s just, me’n Swirly’ve been with him for ages...”

“If he didn’t die immediately, he is now. Along with _anything_ _sent_ _with_ _him_.” Obito noted Chatterbox’s small flinch and the way he began to fidget more openly. “I sent him to a dimension of lava with my Mangekyou, because... you could say I received a vision.”

“Vision?”

“Of what the Infinite Tsukuyomi and the Eye of the Moon would have resulted in,” Obito caught movement out of the corner of his eye –Swirly’s upper body had surfaced in the corner of the cavern he favoured. “It fails, horribly. More than that, even if it did succeed it wouldn’t matter. Nothing that would come from it would be real. All worthless.”

“You’re just a boy, you don’t _know_ the world yet.” Swirly came towards him, skirting the edge of his reach. “We’ve been planning for _centuries_ and you would erase all of our effort, call it worthless?”

“I already have,” the Zetsu jerked back a little in offence. “Swirly, you _have_ to realize that once she got what she wanted, there was no way you could _live_.”

Both of them froze in surprise, whether at his indirect reference to Kaguya or at something else, he wasn’t sure. “We would know peace,” Chatterbox offered, lone hand close to his chest.

“In death, yes,” neither appeared too affected by this, so he tried a different tactic. “She wants all chakra to herself, and _only_ for herself. You’ve both suffered tremendously because of her, and even if you gave your life to her cause she wouldn’t feel a thing for you. She won’t.” While Swirly remained motionless, Chatterbox actually sniffed and looked downright miserable. “Let me make this a peaceful world. Help me do so. Swirly, Chatty, I’ll make a world where you can live in the sunlight and be free, I swear it.”

“ _Why?!_ ” Swirly finally flung himself into motion –he threw himself at Obito and knocked him into the hard wall of the cave, his head splitting open to surround Obito threateningly. “You see what we are! We’re changed, we haven’t been human in who knows how many years! We’re only alive because _she_ _willed_ _it_! How can you speak of this _fantasy_ in the face of that?!”

Obito was so used to the churning ball of hate and resentment within his chest that when he looked into Swirly’s maw and pity stirred, it surprised him. In his first life he had taken the White Zetsu for granted –they were no better than puppets to him by the end. Sasuke had killed Chatterbox and Swirly died in battle, but even before then he’d grown detached. Black Zetsu subsuming most of Chatty had gone a long way to erasing any reminder of the beings’ attempts at friendliness over the year he was trapped with Madara.

“I will succeed whether you think it a fantasy or not.” The pity grew as Swirly shuddered all around him, and despite knowing that it might not turn out well he placed a hand gently where he guessed Swirly’s shoulder was. “Regardless of how you look, you think and breathe and feel. You aren’t angry and conflicted because she told you to be, and you didn’t have to be kind to me this past year, but you did. You deserve to live as your own being, and even if I have to burn down every Hidden Village and help them rebuild from the ground up, I want to see that fantasy become a reality... for all of us.”

A beat passed between them, and then Swirly reformed his head, pulled back, and as quick as he’d appeared he sunk back down into the floor; Obito sighed and met Chatterbox’s eye, and while the Zetsu still appeared nervous and sad he still deigned to move closer.

“Um, Swirly’s still listening, I think,” he confided, which –Obito hoped so, he didn’t want to have to repeat his reasoning more than once when he was on a strained schedule.

“That’s fine. But you never did give me an answer, Chatty.”

“I-” Chatterbox choked again, but after several breaths he managed to go on. “I just have one more question.”

Obito hummed and inclined his head.

“What about all the other White Zetsu?” Chatterbox glanced back at the Flowering Tree, which, without Black Zetsu to tend its chakra consumption was already listing slightly to the side, the frozen face of the False Hashirama less defined than before. “I know not all of them are as... sentient as me’n Swirly are, but we aren’t the only ones who were brought out. There are lots of nests out there...”

“That’s where I need your and Swirly’s help.” Obito debated for a moment, and then lowered himself to sit cross legged on the floor of the dais, and when he gestured for it, Chatty joined him. “You’re right that they aren’t all sentient. The vast majority are pure clones, which means that something is missing from them –they can follow simple orders and observe their surroundings, but they have no agency, no self-awareness, and no desires. It’s because you and Swirly were once humans that the difference shows.” Chatterbox nodded slowly, still apprehensive. “I’d want you two to find those nests and determine which of the White Zetsu are like you. Moreover, which of them can be won over to working with us, which of them would want to live among humans even though Madara and Black Zetsu and the Eye of the Moon plan are finished. All the others couldn’t just be kept in limbo for eternity.”

“O-Oh...” Chatty did something then that Obito wouldn’t have expected even an hour ago. He shuffled forward, the spikes on his one side shifting backwards slightly like the petals of a flower, and he extended his hand towards Obito’s scarred side. Obito obliged him, and settled his artificial hand against Chatty’s, and because it felt like the thing to do he encouraged mokuton to come forth.

It was sluggish and took more concentration than he was willing to admit to stop it from forming a weapon or striking forth in defence –instead he coaxed a small sapling forward and curled it up and over Chatterbox’s hand, the slowly unfurling leaves only just brushing the other’s skin.

“O-Okay,” Chatterbox stared at the little sapling with an expression on his face that was equal parts awe and misery. “I’m with you, Obito-kun. I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.”

Obito could ask Swirly for an answer on another day. He wasn’t too worried; having Chatterbox in his corner meant the other Zetsu would probably be right behind him once given the time to think his offer through. It had already been a risk to leave them as long as he had, when they could have easily ditched the cave and gone underground to try to enact Kaguya’s plan on their own. There was still an army even without Black Zetsu to give it direction. But Obito trusted his instincts after so many years, and it had already proved fruitful.

“That reminds me,” Obito left his hand in Chatty’s grip, just as soothed by the presence of mokuton in another as the Zetsu probably felt. “It was rude of me to just impose ‘Chatterbox’ and ‘Swirly’ on you two. If you’ll be joining the world, you should choose a proper name.”

This prompted a pleased, green flush from Chatty, and Swirly even surfaced up to his shoulders from the floor a few paces away. “You think so?” Chatterbox had once been flippant about the idea of a human name, but under Obito’s grip his fingers went clammy and shaken in his nerves. “I guess it makes sense, but –um, I wouldn’t know where to start. I can’t remember much from when I was human...”

Obito didn’t pry, but all the same he was intensely curious about exactly _when_ the Zetsu had been turned into their current states.

“I could always give you suggestions, or you can think on it for later.” Obito watched in interest as the hand clutched in his began to sprout little branches, the bark more jagged than his own, but the leaves on their tips were delicate enough to see through. “If you wanted to emulate a clan, we can always think up a surname as well. There will likely be a lot of you.”

“I’d like to hear a few,” Swirly rose up a little more and rested his arms on Chatterbox’s leg, empty eye turned up towards their joined hands.

“For you, Swirly, you could always describe yourself. ‘Kenshin’ from ‘devoted’, ‘Daichi’ for ‘intelligent, wisdom’, ‘Atsushi’ for ‘kindness’... even ‘Kajo’, as in ‘spiral’.” Obito saw the proud little hitch in the Zetsu’s shoulders and was emboldened. “Or you could choose a name that emulates something you wish to become or that you respect, or that you want to remember. I had to choose a pseudonym recently and I debated on Kokai for ‘regret’, but chose Fuka for ‘impossible’, instead.”

“Me too!” Chatty’s mokuton began to manifest flower buds on the twigs, and Obito actually found his face softening into –not a smile, but the closest he’d come yet.

“’Ren’ means ‘lotus’,” another flush of green, and Obito had to wonder if the pair had always been so open or if he had just managed to break down some barrier between them with his honesty. “’Tomomi’ which is ‘friend’ combined with ‘truth’, or there’s the part of ‘thoughtful’ which is ‘Shiryo’. Even ‘Kisaku’, ‘friendly’.” Obito raised his free hand and pulled the small sapling out of his arm, and then let go of Chatty’s hand –before he could look too down about it, Obito caught his shoulder and, when the other kept still for him, he encouraged one of the spikes to smooth itself away so the sapling could latch into its place. The Zetsu appeared delighted. “As for a clan name, you could be ‘Takenaka’, dwelling among bamboo. ‘Nakano’, for the middle of the wilderness, or after the river. Or even ‘Moritani’, which is ‘forest’ and ‘valley’.”

As Swirly reached up to snag Obito’s hand himself, and managed to create little wooden bulbs on the back of his fingers like the knots on very old trees, Obito caught sight of a far off scene in his mind. It was a village, but not any he knew. It was daytime, and there was a small child with green hair coaxing a thin, curling plant out of the skin of their palm. He knew it wasn’t real, not the way his memories of the future or the scenes of the Akatsuki’s deaths had been, but to think of it now meant more in the long run. It was a _possibility._

 _‘Rin, Kakashi... Naruto...’_ he thought, perhaps foolishly. _‘Please, I’m begging you, stop me if lose sight of this. I think I’m beginning to understand what you were trying to tell me.’_


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer; I own nothing here.

by: Yidkirkin

Spoilers Ahoy

VVV

Obito leaned on the wall outside the Hokage’s office and could faintly hear the dulcet tones of one Uchiha Fugaku raging and spitting threats from inside, against everything from the Iwa shinobi to T&I to the Hokage himself. Obito had to give it to the man, he certainly had a spine of steel to be talking to the Hokage like this, but if he was entirely honest then he wasn’t sure how he felt about what was about to happen. He still hated the Uchiha Clan for their hypocrisy, and while he wasn’t on friendly terms with Iwa either the way Fugaku was talking could very well lead to further war action if he didn’t say something.

After another few minutes the noise quieted and the Hokage’s tired call for him to enter came from within, and without much else he could do, Obito steeled himself for the confrontation. The Sandaime sat at his desk and a much younger Fugaku than he’d last seen was standing in the middle of the room as if he’d previously been pacing in his emotion. He wore a pensive, almost concerned look on his face when he turned to take Obito in, and he had to wonder at that.

“Uchiha-sama, if you would sit so we may discuss the situation with Fuka-san,” The Sandaime stood, and waved them over to the couches he had set to one side, a pot of tea already waiting. He poured a cup for each of them, but they remained on the table for the moment while Fugaku was still in a tizzy. Obito warily looked between the two men before he took a seat next to the Hokage, which allowed Fugaku a line of sight to inspect him even if it probably didn’t help his mood. He was hyper aware that while he’d cleaned up some from his initial entrance into the village, he still looked distinctly _odd_ to anyone used to clear cut lines between the nations and distinct traits to clans. He had moulded his mask a little better this morning, and wore a red head scarf that fell a little neater with his hair properly cared for, tied up with a plain black headband. The kimono he had purchased with this meeting in mind was dark brown and he had tied it once more in the style of Ame –a wide, mid-placed obi with several loose ends folded over the edge –mostly for the contrast to the typical Uchiha manner of dress.

His Sharingan refused to be cowed today, so it lazily spun in his skull on the scarred side of his body, which Fugaku took in alongside his white hair with a critical eye.

“I am the current Head of the Uchiha Clan, Uchiha Fugaku,” he greeted, and Obito sketched a bow. “You claim to be the child of Uchiha Kaname.”

“I... yes. We never met,” without the Fuka Genjutsu to keep his head straight, Obito really felt like a piece of shit for dragging this woman back into the limelight for his cover story. “From what I can gather, she destroyed her eyes upon capture and then managed to kill herself before I was born –I wasn’t supposed to survive her, I imagine.” Next to him the Hokage twitched slightly in the hands, which was as good a show of sympathy as the man was ever going to display in a situation like this.

“She was not married,” Fugaku said this and Obito had to shove down his instinctual snarl of frustration that _that_ was the first place the man’s mind went –was he really going to make Obito _tell him_ that Fuka wasn’t the result of an unknown pregnancy from before the woman went missing? It was hard to forget that only a year had gone by since his death.

“With due respect, Uchiha-sama, I could describe the circumstances, but I don’t think I need to.” The man appeared a little taken aback, and Obito hoped that the older man hadn’t yet bent completely to the Clan elders like he would in the time of the Massacre –he was starting to form an inkling of what he could do to the Clan while he was stuck in Konoha. “It’s obvious I’m not a full Uchiha. The notes from Zetsu mentioned my physique was quite different, and I have a... difficult time wrangling my Sharingan. I certainly had no clue what I was my first decade alive, at any rate.”

This was all hitting a little close to home in terms of cover stories.

Fugaku seemed to weigh his words. “The Clan is strengthened by every member. You are not the first to come from... such origins.”

Obito fucking _bet_ that Fuka wasn’t.

“You defected because Iwa was pushing you to awaken the Sharingan?” Fugaku guessed.

“No,” Obito glanced out the window and was momentarily caught up in the sight of the Konohagakure of his childhood –in all of its tranquility and all of its dark, terrifying secrets. “I was an Iwa citizen for ten years. An orphan, civilian child, but a regular citizen all the same. I may have left, but –that fact still remains. I left because of Zetsu, and my Jounin sensei.”

It was easy even without the Genjutsu to slot Madara into the role; he had moulded him into the man Obito was now, more or less, in that year spent underground. Sometimes he was surprised that he hadn’t given in to his worldview more quickly.

“Madara-sensei-“ and _there_ was the reaction to the name that Obito had been expecting, where Fugaku recoiled a little and paled a good two shades so his complexion resembled oatmeal. “-manipulated us, and now I’m the only one left. Everyone I really cared about is dead.” _His parents, grandmother, Rin, then Minato, Kisame, Kakashi... hell, even Chatterbox and Swirly had fallen by the final battle. And back in that probably doomed future, who **knew** if Naruto had prevailed against Kaguya in the end? _“As I told Hokage-sama, my dream is to have true peace. I can work for that wherever I am, but I thought to see what... Okaa-sama’s family was like in the meantime. I defected from Iwa because no one ever found out what Zetsu did, and I couldn’t stay in a place like that. So don’t you dare think you can use me to keep this war going on even a _second_ longer.”

“No one is going to use you against Iwa, Fuka-san,” the Sandaime murmured, soothing a bit of Obito’s frustration. “We aren’t even going to mention you, in case Iwagakure pushes for expropriation. Everyone wants the war to end.”

“You’ve made it extremely clear that this ‘Zetsu’ was acting outside the purview of the Tsuchikage,” Fugaku said, and the admission from him sounded like the equivalent of pulling teeth. “With you now a Konoha citizen, you will of course be given housing in the Uchiha district. We are a proud Clan, and we honour those who keep that knowledge.”

Obito tasted iron in his mouth at the phrasing. They were under the impression that Kaname had been a loyal Uchiha to the end, which she very well could have been, so Fugaku went on to explain the Clan would accept him into their fold as if he’d been born in-village. He would be afforded shelter, they would arrange a career path should he decide not to return to the ranks of Shinobi, and upon his death his body would be burnt at the Great Temple and interred among his ancestors. He would officially bear the Uchiha name and all that came with it; both the backing of the clan but also the fact that his performance would reflect on them as a whole.

It sounded like all he had ever dreamt of as a Genin. But Obito knew first hand it wasn’t all so rosy and symbiotic. Sure, the Uchiha didn’t go so far as the Hyuuga, but there were other ways to control people.

The Senju Clan had gone extinct because the Shodaime had encouraged them all to ‘become’ the village, so while blood lingered, the Clan itself was as good as gone. The Uchiha, in an effort to avoid the same fate, had placed themselves ‘apart’ from the village by embracing their role as the Military Police. The war had managed to loosen the hold enough that a few Uchiha, like Obito, were sent out of village on missions and garnered positions in ANBU, but not nearly enough. They were the wealthiest and strongest among the noble clans, but also the most insular –the coup d’état, as much as it would be neat and clean to blame it entirely on Danzo, was in large part brought about by the unwillingness of the Uchiha to spread themselves throughout Konoha’s forces. That the elders also spun it as a way to mitigate their ‘Curse of Hatred’ helped no one and only made people wary of associating with them.

They were loyal, but this tendency created a fissure between them and the rest of the village. The Hyuuga, barbaric practices aside, had proven very clearly that they could hold positions throughout the various divisions in the village forces without compromising their dojutsu or clan strength, and while most of the major Clans had been sympathetic to the Uchiha’s decisions, the wider population of civilians and clanless Shinobi only saw the divide. It was hard to trust a comrade who never left the village, or only dealt with civilian issues through the police, or had a ‘reputation’ for being cold and detached. Danzo had capitalized on this unrest splendidly and if Obito let it play out the same, the elder would have the Uchiha moved to the edge of the village again regardless of whether the Kyuubi attacked or not. And then, the coup would start to be planned.

Good thing Obito wasn’t going to allow that.

There was a rot creeping into the Uchiha, the same as the Root that was poisoning the great tree. Kagami, shut out of clan decisions for his closeness to the Nidaime. Masahi, the ANBU who had driven himself to an early death after years of pressure to marry. Little Izumi and her mother shunned from the district because Inami refused to leave the man she loved. A dozen more cases like this, shoved under the rug in the hopes they would disappear rather than decay.

Then there had been Obito, himself. Parents he had never known but his mother an _outsider_ , left behind with his ailing grandmother on their deaths. Kept in the district enough to feel a sense of duty to clan and kin, but never brought close enough to feel his clansmen’s love, or fondness. No one had been very fond of him, the orphaned below average Chuunin, until after his death when he was named a hero. The Uchiha had once been a clan that cared for all of their children regardless of parentage, and accepted all into their ranks regardless of reputation –but that was back among the Warring Clans era when there was no other choice. Back before Madara had lost his mind and set the Kyuubi on Konoha, back before there was a new generation of elders who didn’t have the good of their people in mind, but rather only the continuation of the Sharingan and their own lofty positions.

It made Obito sick to his stomach that he was going to subject himself to all of it once more, but he was comforted with the difference this time –that he was going to _change it._ And if anyone tried to stop him because it wasn’t ‘proper’ or he should ‘know his place’, then they could go and join the Shinigami like _Obito_ should have done.

“There will be a formal introduction for you tomorrow. We didn’t have much time to prepare-” Fugaku levelled the Hokage with a stern look that the old man gamely ignored. “-but you will have a chance to get acquainted with most of your clansmen. Until your housing is settled, you will be staying in my home.”

“I –that is very generous, Uchiha-sama, but –I couldn’t possibly.” What was Fugaku _doing?_ Letting a missing-nin into the Clan Head’s home was a bad idea on principle, but in all of Obito’s memory the man had never been so, for lack of a better term, _invested._ As the years wore on and Fugaku grew cold and resigned to the shunning of his people, he became at best an unknowing figurehead under the direction of the clan elders. Obito had _watched_ , and the stark difference in the way he treated his two children was apparent.

“You are an Uchiha now, call me Fugaku,” the man stood, prompting Obito and the Hokage to copy him. “And regardless of could or couldn’t, listen to your Clan Head, yes?” Was –was the man trying to tease him? Obito felt extremely out of his depth at the way this younger, less cynical Fugaku was throwing curves into what he thought he could expect. But at the same time it gave him a little hope –the man wasn’t yet unreachable, and he was going to take advantage of that.

VVV

Seeing Itachi was too much, as it turned out.

Fugaku had escorted him to the Uchiha district after they finalized his paperwork and retrieved his few possessions from the room at the inn; the brief glimpse of the man’s more relaxed side was hidden as they walked the streets and the Clan Head acted as a man of his station. Obito kept pace with him, glad to be quiet for the journey –he could feel a certain tension arising within him at the prospect of greeting the entire Clan, seeing the same faces he had last glimpsed mere seconds before his tanto struck them down-

Mikoto was waiting on the porch for their arrival, and she too was not quite the woman he knew from his years watching the Uchiha before the Massacre. She hadn’t settled into the role of housewife yet, and moved with the contained grace and power of any other Jounin on leave who expected to one day return to that duty. Her heavily pregnant belly would delay that for almost a year longer, but she was yet the formidable woman who had only begun to buckle under the pressure of the village’s animosity very close to the end.

“Fuka-san, it is good to meet you,” she rose from her seat and cup of tea to approach him and her husband –Mikoto briefly touched her hand to Fugaku’s elbow and received a small smile in return before she swung her eyes back to take Obito in. She lingered for a moment or two on his mask and hair and kimono, but then squarely met his gaze and telegraphed her movement so he allowed her to take one of his hands. “Please feel welcome in our home, and in the village itself.”

“...Thank you, Uchiha-sama.”

“Call me Mikoto, Fuka-san. No need for formality among family,” she must have noticed his gaze flicker down to her stomach, for she quirked a smile that reminded him more than anything that she was friends with Uzumaki Kushina. “You’ve come to us in time to welcome our second child. Our eldest is asleep at the moment, but you’ll meet him as well.”

Feeling stiff, Obito nodded silently, and saw Mikoto and Fugaku exchange a look before he was brought into the house. Fugaku had been the Clan Head for six short years at this point in time, and as a boy Obito hadn’t interacted with him on many occasions. When his grandmother died Fugaku had lost his father mere weeks earlier, and so while he had arrived to give Obito condolences he had also left the funeral arrangements up to a proxy. They had shared words twice yearly at the festivals hosted in the Great Temple, and Mikoto had once roped him into helping her weed their household garden, but that was the extent of it. A first step to making the Uchiha change would likely be getting them to trust his input.

“Sit, sit, you two. I made up some tea beforehand,” Mikoto briskly waved them toward the kotatsu in the sitting room, and Fugaku did so immediately, nodding for Obito to sit across from him.

“Fuka-san, I realize you are uncomfortable with being hosted,” Fugaku opened with bluntly. “While I was not privy to the interrogation records, I do know you spent nearly three years as a missing-nin. I would ask that you come to me if you encounter any cultural differences between Konoha and Iwa, or if you are unsure as to how you must act among your clansmen.”

Here with only two people to face instead of the masses of random civilians and shinobi he had contended with over the past few days, Obito found it a little easier to steady his hands. He would not have to face those he had murdered just yet. “I can do so,” Obito turned and accepted the cup that Mikoto passed him with a quiet word of thanks.

“You should approach me as well, okay? Your situation is... unprecedented and there will be adjusting from both sides.” Mikoto set the teapot down and took the seat next to Fugaku. “I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, Fuka-san, but we were told you’ve been travelling the last three years. You must have seen many of the smaller countries to avoid the war.”

“I don’t mind if you ask me things,” Obito wondered how he should drink the tea, and then remembered that it was a little different from the way Kakashi needed to orchestrate distractions or literally cast a genjustu to keep his face hidden. He fiddled with the little hooks that attached it to his head wrap and pulled at the one side like it was on a hinge; when he turned his head to take a sip both Fugaku and Mikoto either averted their gaze or made a long blink to give him privacy. “I passed through many of them, it’s true. Because of the ramifications of the Second War I spent a bit of time in Ame helping the farmers establish their crops again, and in Wave similarly. The Land of Rivers and the edges of Grass needed many hands in their reconstruction efforts. I avoided war zones both because I was wary of the Hunter-nin, but also because I didn’t know if Konoha would receive me in the heat of the conflict.”

“It was smart, waiting for the announcement,” Fugaku nodded decisively.

“...Yeah, of course,” they languished into silence for a few moments, before Obito recalled something. “I meant to ask. The Konoha-nin I helped, Hatake-san, is he an Uchiha?”

The reaction was _interesting._ Mikoto’s forehead pinched slightly and she clenched the hand on her cup of tea, while Fugaku actually made an expression like he was in pain. “No,” Mikoto ended up being the one to say. “He received his eye from a clansman who died in the war.”

“That happens?”

“It doesn’t, but there were... extenuating circumstances, we’ve come to understand.” Fugaku scowled deeply, but there was less a tinge of anger to it than sadness. “Obito-kun would have been your direct cousin, Fuka-san. Your mother was his paternal aunt.”

It was the very basis for this identity, so Obito knew that very well –when his grandmother died, he had done an exhaustive search of the records to trace his specific family line, but his was particularly fraught even among the clan. Father and aunt dead, the children of Etsuko and Kuromo, the both of whom had been the only children of only children, and his great-great grandparents’ generation had been tied into the Clan through marriages with an Izanaya (now extinct) and a Sendo (a clan from the Land of Waves) respectively. His closest direct relative among the Uchiha was something like a fourth cousin who had died of influenza around the time Obito was born. Early on in his time as Madara, when he hadn’t been fully committed to the role, he had thought up identities for any manner of situations –Fuka was only one of several he had prepared for the chance he needed an in to the Clan.

“I’ll have to pay my respects.” And apologize to Rin for lying so damned much in his efforts to do better. At this rate even if he fixed everything he’d once broken, he’d still be in line for the Shinigami’s torture based on how much of an asshole he was.

They managed to carry on a conversation despite the sombre tone Obito had brought upon them; Fugaku detailed that his introduction would be held in the evening at the Temple the following day, in the form of a large dinner so that he wasn’t overwhelmed with the amount of people. His living quarters would be prepared by the end of the week, so Fugaku asked him to spend a bit of time in his presence, to be introduced to the Uchiha’s traditions such as the Grand Fireball Technique, and then the rest of the time with Mikoto so he was familiarized with the area. It would serve the added purpose of keeping a relative outsider under the watchful eyes of the Head of the Military Police and a Jounin in good standing.

By the time lunch rolled in, Obito was feeling more in control of himself. He was quietly resigned to placing the Fuka Genjutsu upon himself tomorrow –he really didn’t need the flashbacks, however brief, of the faces of each Uchiha as he killed them distracting him –and was just getting ready to inquire about the finer details of the peace talks, when the door behind him slid open. Mikoto brightened up and stood, and Obito’s body refused to listen to him when he tried to make it turn.

“Fuka-san,” Mikoto came back into his field of vision with her hands on a set of small shoulders, and she sounded so happy and proud, so it must be –“This is Itachi, our eldest son. Itachi, Fuka-san is a cousin who was away from the Clan for a very long time.”

Itachi was small, only came up to his mother’s thigh, and inspected Obito with dark, curious eyes set in the chubby, round face of a child only just out of the toddler years. He would not gain the distinctive lines on his face for another few years, and only when the stress of ANBU had become too much for him to bear on his own. He was calmer than most other children Obito had seen over the years, but as he took in Obito’s mask and head wrap and scars, and his still activated Sharingan, he smiled shyly and murmured a greeting. Obito flinched back and drew in a sharp breath, his chakra swelling in distress, and Itachi’s eyes widened and he hid slightly behind his mother’s legs, which did not help the situation.

It figured that Obito had been able to push down his emotion at seeing Kakashi, Rin and Kushina, but when it came to his currently four year old cousin he lost his bearings.

“Fuka-san?” Fugaku prompted lowly, a hand slowly placed in his field of vision, palm up.

How could he possibly explain? _I killed your son._ The words were there in his throat, behind his teeth. _It wasn’t by my hand, but I drove him to the point that he met death with relief. You are giving me shelter when once I used him without mercy, I made him a missing-nin, I tore apart your family for a poisoned dream that ended in failure-_ His hands gripped at his mask unbidden, as if it was the only barrier preventing him from blurting it all out, telling them everything and then facing their judgement like the one he’d avoided from the Shinigami. _Rin, why did you show me their deaths? Why did you bring grief into my heart once more? I won’t last a day like this, I spend twenty years with nothing but anger and revenge consuming me-_

“Can’t –breathe –” Obito managed to choke out. “Need – _outside –_ ”

Fugaku moved swiftly, and hooked his hands underneath Obito’s armpits to pull him into a standing position. Then as Obito stumbled forward he put an arm around his waist and they managed to make it through the house to the back garden, where as soon as Obito was released he fell to his knees, tore his mask off and emptied his stomach. He coughed and gasped at the acid and bile, and his vision flickered from the enhanced vision of his Sharingan, to normal, to his Mangekyou and back and forth as he shook and heaved again.

 _Dammit, Rin, damn you-_ “Why couldn’t you have let me die? Dammit...” Obito heaved in a shuddering breath and coughed harshly. “I was _ready._ I tried to keep our promise, but–” He hadn’t seen if Naruto had won, and he wanted to believe he did, he wanted nothing more, but Kaguya – _Kaguya-_ “I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ , I’ll do better. But I can’t –you left me with so _much,_ there’s too much, forgive me, I’m not-” _–strong enough. Itachi died because of me and I wiped out the Uchiha, I killed sensei and Kushina,_ _I fell for Madara’s twisted vision and all of it’s my fault, I shouldn’t get this chance-_ “I should have died! I –I shouldn’t be here.”

Obito coughed a bit more and folded in over his knees. He was drained from the surge of emotion and the violent reaction his body had gone into due to it; clearly, it was going to be a lot harder to keep himself in check despite the years of experience. He forced his lungs to take in deep breaths and rested his heated forehead on one of his forearms to cool it down slightly.

Directly behind him, he heard Fugaku hum quietly to get his attention, and belatedly Obito realized the man must have heard the entire thing, even if not much of his breakdown was intelligible. His mask was off, but Fugaku didn’t shift to get a look at his face, only kept where he was some ten feet back, still perfectly polite even in a situation like this.

“Fuka-kun, Mikoto has brought a basin and washcloth.” Obito kept his breathing steady even though his stomach wanted to kick up another fuss. “If you would allow, I will bring it to your left side. I can’t imagine your mask would be comfortable right now.”

“Ah... you’d be right,” Obito let out a shaky sigh. “Please, I would appreciate it.”

Fugaku took swift, heavy steps to telegraph where he was, so when Obito turned his head to the right, the Clan head set the basin next to his left hand and stepped back just as quickly. Obito took the washcloth and soaked it well before he wiped at his face and neck, glad that with how stiff his hair was it hadn’t fallen over his shoulder and gotten mucked up. His mask, too, had survived unscathed, and it was with relief that he affixed it back into place a few minutes later –it made it easier to turn and face Fugaku once more.

The man was sitting on the porch alone, one leg dangling and the other folded underneath him, and was watching Obito with more emotion on his face than he’d ever seen before. It was a mix of regret and sympathy, maybe some pity, but Obito didn’t begrudge him that. He approached cautiously and sat a few feet away, turned slightly so Fugaku wasn’t in a complete blind spot.

“I suppose you want an explanation.”

Fugaku grimaced, and his shoulders curled inwards as he folded his arms across his chest. “No, it isn’t necessary. It is clear that you’ve been through more than I can imagine.”

 _A whole two decades worth,_ Obito thought uncharitably. “Even still. Itachi-kun looks... very much like a man I once worked beside. He died because of my _stupidity._ It startled me. I shouldn’t have trouble seeing the boy in the future.”

“From when you were in Iwa?”

Obito thought for a moment about how he should tie his old life to this new one. “I was a Genin for a year. Then my teammates died, and as a Chuunin I was solely under Madara-sensei’s tutelage, and it was...”

Obito’s feelings on the old man were complicated. He hated him for driving him to such lengths, for infecting his heart with sorrow and madness, for seeding revenge within him and then _leaving_ him to fumble and grasp at Black Zetsu’s ephemeral plans and support alone. In the year underground, he’d grown attached to the old man in an odd way, always with an undercurrent of fear that was tied directly to the threat of crushing rock and suffocating darkness. Yet he hadn’t truly known Madara’s insanity until he was revived and forced him to enact the plan, not until he laid out all the ways he had manoeuvred to turn Obito into his pawn, and succeeded.

Not until he had demanded Madara _tell him_ what he saw in him, and in the end it was as Black Zetsu said. He was a fool, full of nothing but mistakes, and Madara only ever kept him so that one day he could _repay his debt._

_“Wasn’t elder care your specialty?”_

But... Madara had made him strong. He had opened his eyes to the problems of the world and steeled him against them, and for all Obito had gone about it the wrong way, for all he hadn’t changed a _damn thing_ in the end, he _had_ forced the world to the brink. At twelve he was an orphaned Uchiha, a below average Chuunin who should have died within a year; at thirty-two he had united the Five Great Nations against him and nearly fought them to defeat. Had he done things _right_ , from the very beginning...

“It was hell. I was held by him for weeks or months at a time while he ran tests, did his best to push me further and make me stronger. When the records office needed to know where I was, he sent me off to work with other teams, then I was back in his hands. And the entire time, I thought he did it because he _cared_.” That was the heart of it, wasn’t it? “I didn’t even think what he was doing was wrong. I bought into his lies, I did what he told me to and didn’t _care._ After a while, the people I got sent out with kept dying; we weren’t involved in the fighting, so I thought it was strange. Sensei had taught me never to trust anyone, which backfired on him, because after –Karasu died _because_ of me, so I went digging in the records, and that’s when I found out about Kaname.”

“I’d learnt enough about Seals to deconstruct the Forbidden Individual Curse Tag, which blew up spectacularly.” Obito wiggled his scarred fingers in the air in front of him and Fugaku’s breath hitched a bit. “And with that out of the way, I killed Madara. Let him and Zetsu rot together. I left pretty soon after –I haven’t got a bingo book page, so there’s a chance they don’t know I was the one who killed him, or they never uncovered his body... either way, the last three years I’ve been avoiding people. I apologize if I make trouble for you because of that.”

“There is no need for any apology. You are an Uchiha, I –I _will_ support you when you are in need,” the way Fugaku said it was odd, like he was making himself a promise but also like he had been about to say something else just before. “I know you want the war to be over, so I shall not, but I... _dearly_ wish I could demand revenge for you and your mother. I cannot say I am soothed that your Sensei and his ilk are dead.”

This... was _certainly_ not the man Itachi had killed. Pieces of him could turn that way, Obito could already see, but the Uchiha Fugaku before him was still a man of the village as opposed to a man desperately focused on his clan for no alternative. Time could change that and twist his heart colder; one of the catalysts for Danzo’s vendetta against the Uchiha was when Sarutobi passed Orochimaru over for Minato and then the Sannin’s illicit experimentation was discovered with the help of the Military Police. Danzo’s focus on the Uchiha before then had been more cautious, similar in ways to the Nidaime’s caution –but he was a man known to hold grudges and had taken the Uchiha’s support of Minato as an unforgivable slight.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Fugaku-sama,” Obito picked at a knot in his hair slightly, and could feel Fugaku’s eyes on him. “Were there anyone left to take revenge on, I might even humour you.”

The tension broke when Fugaku huffed a laugh, and when he levered himself up off the porch he was visibly more relaxed than he let on for most of the day. He glanced up at the sky and noted the sun was starting to make its way to the horizon, “I think Mikoto already made up the guest room. May I suggest you lie down before dinner, Fuka-kun?”

Obito really shouldn’t –he had enough trouble keeping on a decent sleep schedule when he could see the sun, but this body had been trapped underground for a year and would be more susceptible to his tunnel vision than he was used to. But at the same time the vomiting and emotional breakdown had pushed him to exhaustion when he was already under the strain of keeping up this Fuka farce, and so in the end he acquiesced.

The room was bare and impersonal beyond a bit of art on the walls, but the futon was warm. Obito couldn’t bring himself to care that he was letting his guard fall as he stripped and collapsed down, and was pulled into the dark within minutes.

VVV

Obito snapped awake the moment a knock on the door sounded, and emerged from the room several minutes later mostly put together –the more he did it, the easier he found wrapping the fabric and tying it off, as well as making the mask sit properly. Fugaku and Mikoto were found in the kitchen quietly conversing about village business, and they turned to him when he entered the room.

“Fuka-kun, how did you sleep?” Mikoto asked, wiping her hands on a towel; behind her Obito could see what he was pretty sure were vegetables for a quick pickle.

“Like the dead,” Obito sketched a short bow to the both of them, still uncomfortable with the action after twenty years of refraining. “Thank you for accommodating me.”

“Oh –no, it wasn’t any trouble,” Mikoto almost seemed to flounder at his words for a moment. “No one is expecting you to adjust straight away. Recovery takes time.”

“As you say,” Obito felt a little more secure hiding behind the more formal way Fuka was supposed to speak; it was so different from being the cold, ruthless version of Madara or the flippant, whimsical Tobi or even Obito himself, at the end reduced to a criminal hated by every member of the Allied Shinobi Forces. “I’d also like to apologize to your son. I must have unnerved him.”

Fugaku nodded to the sitting room, his mouth neutral but fondness in his eyes. “He’s practicing his characters at the kotatsu. But don’t feel obligated, Fuka-kun. We’ve spoken with Itachi and he has been mature in his understanding of your position.”

Obito had expected a response around those lines –Itachi had always been a little too calm for a child and it made people treat him as if he was much older than he was. Even so, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow that it started so early, and with the boy’s own parents. Maybe Fugaku being so hard on Sasuke wasn’t only due to the stress of the pressure on the Clan. “He’s still practically a _toddler,_ ” he turned away before he could see the reaction to his incredulity, and went to give the child an explanation.

Itachi looked up as he entered the room and went very still; he watched Obito approach him with wide eyes and leaned a little bit away when he took a seat on the opposite side of the kotatsu; under his tiny hands he was indeed carefully practicing his hiragana and katakana, the lines a little wobbly but mostly competent. Obito placed his hands in view on the tabletop and made sure his body language was unthreatening.

“I am sorry for how I acted, Itachi-kun,” the boy perked up slightly and sought out his gaze, but kept glancing down to Obito’s hands as if to make sure he wouldn’t move them. “You look very much like a person I knew who died. I’ll try not to do so again.”

Itachi carefully set down his brush and hoisted himself up on his knees, then hesitantly reached towards him. Obito allowed him to pat at his forearm in a way the boy probably meant to be comforting.

“It’s okay,” he said softly, and met his gaze again more steadily. “I know the war hurt a lot of people.”

“It sure has.” He was forever being surprised. How, _how_ could he have let himself so completely throw away his past, that he could look at a teenager desperately trying to find a way to save his Clan and push him past the brink? “But, Itachi-kun, it _isn’t_ okay. I’m an adult, I should know better than to react that way around a child. Still, thank you.” Itachi removed his hand and made a little nod. He sat back down but didn’t return to his exercises, just stared up at Obito like he expected them to carry on a conversation now. “Er –what’s that you’re working on?”

“Hiragana and katakana,” Itachi turned the paper around and showed Obito the simple phrases. “Kobayakawa-sensei says we have to know everything but Kanji before going to the Academy.”

“Kobayakawa-sensei sounds smart,” Itachi thought about that for a moment and then nodded gravely, a very serious expression on his face for a five year old. “Going to be a Shinobi, are you?”

“Mmhm,” Itachi scribbled a doodle of a shuriken on the edge of the paper. “I’m good at throwing kunai, and sticking leaves to my forehead. But-” Itachi paused a moment. He glanced at the door to the kitchen where his parents still were before he went on. “Um, I don’t like fighting much. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

 _‘Dammit, Rin,’_ Obito thought, his heart aching as the kid peeked up at him hopefully. _‘You’ll see. I can handle this, I **can**.’_ “Shinobi _can_ hurt a lot of people. Sometimes if no one tells them it’s wrong, they never stop.” Itachi let out a little gasp and sat up straight, his full attention on Obito. “But that isn’t all a Shinobi can do. Didn’t the Shodaime say that anyone who protects the village is a Shinobi?”

Itachi nodded. “But, that hurts people too. Like the people in Ame after the second war.”

What were they teaching kids at the Temple School? “That’s right. Even if you never leave the village, you may still hurt others. There is always the possibility,” Itachi was beginning to look discouraged, which wasn’t what Obito was trying to convey –he changed tactics. “Itachi-kun, the _possibility_ is there. Even the most untrained civilian has the potential to hurt someone else. But the heart of the matter is that you always have the choice, and that choice is what matters.”

“What if I’m assigned an assassination?” _‘By the Sage of Six Paths...’_

“You have to receive extra training and authorization for those sorts of missions, so if you don’t want to follow that path then you won’t. Even the Sannin, Tsunade-sama, has never done an assassination mission, I heard.” Sure, she had killed people in the war, but the example still held. “You won’t always be able to help how your actions affect others. Saving a comrade could mean someone else dies. Protecting something will mean you need to make those hard choices. If you don’t like fighting, then find a way you don’t have to. If you don’t want to hurt others, then make the commitment to not do so. But you should remember that you won’t always succeed, and that’s okay.”

“But if I hurt someone, then that means I failed. I _can’t_ fail,” Itachi said quietly.

Obito was going to have _words_ with Fugaku and Mikoto. When it came to the actions of others, he supposed he didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, but even _he_ knew that thinking like this was unhealthy. In a kid so young, with such potential ahead of him, letting a mindset like this fester...

“You _can_ fail, Itachi-kun. You _should._ ” Itachi sniffed a little, and Obito had never been good with kids, always preferred helping out the elders around the village, but when he placed a hand on top of Itachi’s he could feel the boy’s chakra settle down. “No one ever learnt anything without failing at it first. It’s natural, it’s what you’re supposed to do. _Especially_ if you pick things up easier than others. You’ll hold yourself back if you think you should be able to do things right all the time. Even the strongest Shinobi lose, or fail missions, or hurt others when they don’t mean to. Can you think of anyone you know who’s always right?”

“Otousan?” Itachi said.

“I think I heard Fugaku-sama yell at the Hokage this morning, and I don’t know if that’s something you’re _supposed_ to do in Konoha...” Itachi hiccupped in surprise. “I used to think my Sensei was always right. He was very old, and told me that I had to do things exactly as he wanted or I wasn’t worth anything. But he was wrong. When I’ve failed, it hurt. But failing taught me more than years of doing everything right ever did.”

“Like... if I do a kick wrong, and I hurt my foot, next time I know not to do it that way.”

“Exactly, that’s a good example. Or, if you can’t learn Taijutsu very well, you could focus on Ninjutsu or Genjutsu and then return to it later, instead of giving up entirely.” Obito felt something in his chest settle when Itachi looked to be considering this as deeply as a five year old, even a ‘mature’ one, could. “What’s that phrase? ‘Even when you hit bedrock, you can still keep digging’.”

The child bit his lip and let out a subdued giggle. “You talk different, Fuka-nii.” Typical clan kid, to not have met many from outside the village yet. “It’s, ‘under the layer of fallen leaves, new shoots can yet be found’.”

“To think I have such a smart little cousin...”


End file.
